ry with flamboyant embellishments; Kenton
tiad seen Alice, and, inspired with the gossip and a surreptitious
glimpse of her beauty, he felt perfectly familiar with Beverley's
condition. He was himself a victim of the tender passion to the extent
of being an exile from his Virginia home, which he had left on account
of dangerously wounding a rival. But he was well touched with the
backwoodsman's taste for joke and banter. He and Oncle Jazon,
therefore, knowing the main feature of Beverley's predicament, enjoyed
making the most of their opportunity in their rude but perfectly
generous and kindly way.

By indirection and impersonal details, as regarded his feelings toward
Alice, Beverley in due time made his friends understand that his whole
ambition was centered in rescuing her. Nor did the motive fail to
enlist their sympathy to the utmost. If all the world loves a lover,
all men having the best virile instinct will fight for a lover's cause.
Both Kenton and Oncle Jazon were enthusiastic; they wanted nothing
better than an opportunity to aid in rescuing any girl who had shown so
much patriotism and pluck. 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." But his mind was far away with the gold-haired maiden in
Hamilton's prison. He scarcely knew what he was saying.

"Air ye expectin' to marry Alice Roussillon?"

The three men were at the moment eating the well broiled venison. Oncle
Jazon's puckered lips and chin were dripping with the fragrant grease
and juice, which also flowed down his sinewy, claw-like fingers.
Overhead in the bare tops of the scrub oaks that covered the prairie
oasis, the February wind sang a shrill and doleful song.

Beverley started as if a blow had been aimed at him. Oncle Jazon's
question, indeed, was a blow as unexpected as it was direct and
powerful.

"I know it's poo'ty p'inted," the old man added after a short pause,
"an' ye may think 'at I ain't got no business askin' it; but I have.
That leetle gal's a pet o' mine, an' I'm a lookin' after her, an'
expectin' to see 'at she's not bothered by nobody who's not goin' to do
right by her. Marryin' is a mighty good thing, but--"