"What do ye know about matrimony, ye old raw-headed bachelor?" demanded
Kenton, who felt impelled to relieve Beverley of the embarrassment of
an answer. "Ye wouldn't know a wife from a sack o' meal!"

"Now don't git too peart an' fast, Si Kenton," cried Oncle Jazon,
glaring truculently at his friend, but at the same time showing a dry
smile that seemed to be hopelessly entangled in criss-cross wrinkles.
"Who told ye I was a bach'lor? Not by a big jump. I've been married
mighty nigh on to twenty times in my day. Mos'ly Injuns, o' course; but
a squaw's a wife w'en ye marries her, an' I know how it hurts a gal to
be dis'p'inted in sich a matter. That's w'y I put the question I did.
I'm not goin' to let no man give sorry to that little Roussillon gal;
an' so ye've got my say. Ye seed her raise thet flag on the fort,
Lieutenant Beverley, an' ye seed her take it down an' git away wi' it.
You know 'at she deserves nothin' but the best; an' by the Holy Virgin,
she's got to have it, or I'm a goin' to know several reasons why.
Thet's what made me put the question straight to ye, young man, an' I
expects a straight answer."

Beverley's face paled; but not with anger. He grasped one of Oncle
Jazon's greasy hands and gave it such a squeeze that the old fellow
grimaced painfully.

"Thank you, Oncle Jazon, thank you!" he said, with a peculiar husky
burr in his voice. "Alice will never suffer if I can help it. Let the
subject drop now, my friend, until we have saved her from the hands of
Hamilton." In the power of his emotion he continued to grip the old
man's hand with increasing severity of pressure.

"Ventrebleu! let go! Needn't smash a feller's fingers 'bout it!"
screeched Oncle Jazon. "I can't shoot wo'th a cent, nohow, an' ef ye
cripple up my trigger-finger--"

Kenton had been peeping under the low-hanging scrub-oak boughs while
Oncle Jazon was speaking these last words; and now he suddenly
interrupted:

"The devil! look yonder!" he growled out in startling tone. "Injuns!"

It was a sharp snap of the conversation's thread, and at the same time
our three friends realized that they had been careless in not keeping a
better look-out. They let fall the meat they had not yet finished
eating and seized their guns.

Five or six dark forms were moving toward them across a little point of
the prairie that cut into the wood a quarter of a mile distant.

"Yander's more of 'em," said Oncle Jazon, as if not in the least
concern