'bout yer business like a white man!
Close up yer own whopper jawed mouth, ef ye want anything shet up!"

"Oho! is that you, Jazon? You're so little I didn't know you!
Certainly, talk your whole damned under jaw off, for all I care," Clark
replied, assuming a jocose tone. Then turning again to Beverley: "Keep
up the firing and the noise; the fort will be ours in the morning."

"What's the use of waiting till morning?" Beverley demanded with
impatience. "We can tear that stockade to pieces with our hands in half
an hour."

"I don't think so, Lieutenant. It is better to play for the sure thing.
Keep up the racket, and be ready for 'em if they rush out. We must not
fail to capture the hair-buyer General."

He passed on, with something cheerful to say whenever he found a squad
of his devoted men. He knew how to humor and manage those independent
and undisciplined yet heroically brave fellows. What to see and hear,
what to turn aside as a joke, what to insist upon with inflexible
mastery, he knew by the fine instantaneous sense of genius. There were
many men of Oncle Jazon's cast, true as steel, but refractory as flint,
who could not be dominated by any person, no matter of what stamp or
office. To them an order was an insult; but a suggestion pleased and
captured them. Strange as it may seem, theirs was the conquering spirit
of America--the spirit which has survived every turn of progress and
built up the great body of our independence.

Beverley submitted to Clark's plan with what patience he could, and all
night long fired shot for shot with the best riflemen in his squad. It
was a fatiguing performance, with apparently little result beyond
forcing the garrison now and again to close the embrasures, thus
periodically silencing the cannon. Toward the close of the night a
relaxation showed itself in the shouting and firing all round the line.
Beverley's men, especially the creoles, held out bravely in the matter
of noise; but even they flagged at length, their volatility simmering
down to desultory bubbling and half sleepy chattering and chaffing.

Beverley leaned upon a rude fence, and for a time neglected to reload
his hot rifle. Of course he was thinking of Alice,--he really could not
think in any other direction; but it gave him a shock and a start when
he presently heard her name mentioned by a little Frenchman near him on
the left.

"There'll never be another such a girl in Post Vincennes as Alice
Roussillon,