"And where are ye goin'?" demanded Kenton. "Ye're making what lacks a
heap o' bein' a bee-line for some place or other."

Beverley was dazed and vacant-minded; things seemed wavering and dim.
He pushed the two men from him and gazed at them without speaking.
Their presence and voices did not convince him.

"Yer meat's a burnin'," said Oncle Jazon, stooping to turn it on the
smouldering coals. "Ye must be hungry. Cookin' enough for a regiment."

Kenton shook Beverley with rough familiarity, as if to rouse his
faculties.

"What's the matter? Fitz, my lad, don't ye know Si Kenton? It's not so
long since we were like brothers, and now ye don't speak to me! Ye've
not forgot me, Fitz!"

"Mebby he don't like ye as well as ye thought he did," drawled Oncle
Jazon. "I HEV known o' fellers a bein' mistaken jes' thet way."

Beverley got his wits together as best he could, taking in the
situation by such degrees as seemed at the time unduly slow, but which
were really mere momentary falterings.

"Why, Kenton! 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'?"

"I'm going to Clark at Kaskaskia to bring him yonder." He waved his
hand eastward. "I am going to take Vincennes and kill Hamilton."

"Well, ye're taking a mighty queer course, my boy, if ye ever expect to
find Kaskaskia. Ye're already twenty miles too far south."

"Carryin' his gun on the same shoulder all the time," said Oncle Jazon,
"has made 'im kind o' swing in a curve like. 'Tain't good luck no how
to carry yer gun on yer lef' shoulder. When you do it meks yer take a
longer step with yer right foot than ye do with yer lef' an' ye can't
walk a straight line to save yer liver. Ventreblue! La venaison brule
encore! Look at that dasted meat burnin' agin!"

He jumped back to the fire to turn the scorching cuts.

Beverley wrung Kenton's hand and looked into his eyes, as a man does
when an old friend comes suddenly out of the past, so to say, and
brings the freshness and comfort of a strong, true soul to brace him in
his hour of greatest need.

"Of all men in the world, Simon Kenton, you were the least expected;
but how glad