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Updated: September 27, 2025
Alice!" he murmured, "dead, dead!" "Ya-as," drawled Oncle Jazon, "I hearn about it soon as I got inter town. It's a sorry thing, a mighty sorry thing. But mebby I won't do a little somepin' to that " Beverley straightened himself and lifted his gun, forgetting that he had not reloaded it since firing last. He leveled it at the fort and touched the trigger.
But Oncle Jazon was fond of Alice, and Beverley's story affected him peculiarly on her account. "They's one question I'm a goin' to put to ye, young man," he said, after he had heard everything and they had talked it all over, "an' I want ye to answer it straight as a bullet f'om yer gun." "Of course, Jazon, go ahead," said Beverley. "I shall be glad to answer."
Jazon!" he presently exclaimed, a cordial gladness blending with his surprise. "How did you get here? Where did you come from?" He looked from one to the other back and forth with a wondering smile breaking over his bronzed and determined face. "We've been hot on yer trail for thirty hours," said Kenton. "Roussillon put us on it back yonder. But what are ye up to? Where are ye goin'?"
"Ventrebleu!" squeaked Oncle Jazon, "ef I didn't think the ole world had busted into a million pieces!" He was jumping up and down not three feet from Beverley's toes, waving his cap excitedly. "But wasn't I skeert! Ya, ya, ya! Vive la banniere d'Alice Roussillon! Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!" Hearing Alice's name caused Beverley to look around. Where was she?
As they walked side by side down the way to the river house they looked like typical extremes of rough, sun-burned and weather-tanned manhood; Oncle Jazon a wizened, diminutive scrap, wrinkled and odd in every respect; Gaspard Roussillon towering six feet two, wide shouldered, massive, lumbering, muscular, a giant with long curling hair and a superb beard.
He soon found acquaintances and friends among the French volunteers from Kaskaskia, with whom he exchanged creole gestures and chatter with a vivacity apparently inexhaustible. He and Kenton had, with wise judgement, separated on escaping from the Indian camp, Kenton striking out for Kentucky, while Oncle Jazon went towards Kaskaskia.
When a man is truly brave himself there is nothing that touches him like an exhibition of absolutely unselfish gameness in another. A rush of admiration for Oncle Jazon made Beverley feel like hugging him. Meantime the young British officer showed a flag of truce, and, with a file of men, separated himself from the line, now stationary, and approached the stockade.
You would have been sure that he had done the whole deed single-handed, and brought the flotilla and captives to town on his back. But Oncle Jazon for once held his tongue, being too disgusted for words at not having been permitted to fire a single shot. What was the use of going to fight and simply meeting and escorting down the river a lot of non-combatants?
Even Beverley now felt that the execution ordered by the commander ought to have been sternly carried out. A day or two later, however, the whole dark affair was closed forever by a bit of confidence on the part of Oncle Jazon when Beverley dropped into his hut one evening to have a smoke with him.
It was Oncle Jazon who came to the Roussillon place to tell M. Roussillon that he was wanted at the river house. Alice met him at the door. "Come in, Oncle Jazon," she cheerily said, "you are getting to be a stranger at our house lately. Come in; what news do you bring? Take off your cap and rest your hair, Oncle Jazon."
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