aimed, "it was a bold thing for a little girl to do."

"So it was, so it was. But it was also a bold thing for him to do--to
come back after he was dead and scalped and look so handsome and grand!
I'm ashamed and sorry, Father; but--but, I'm afraid I might do it again
if--well, I don't care if I did--so there, now!"

"But what in the world are you talking about?" interposed Adrienne.
Evidently they were discussing a most interesting matter of which she
knew nothing, and that did not suit her feminine curiosity. "Tell me."
She pulled Father Beret's sleeve. "Tell me, I say!"

It is probable that Father Beret would have pretended to betray Alice's
source of mingled delight and embarrassment, had not the rest of the
Bourcier household returned in time to break up the conversation. A
little later Alice gave Adrienne a vividly dramatic account of the
whole scene.

"Ah, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the petite brunette, after she had heard the
exciting story. "That was just like you, Alice. You always do superb
things. You were born to do them. You shoot Captain Farnsworth, you
wound Lieutenant Barlow, you climb onto the fort and set up your
flag--you take it down again and run away with it--you get shot and you
do not die--you kiss your lover right before a whole garrison! Bon
Dieu! if I could but do all those things!"

She clasped her tiny hands before her and added rather dejectedly: "But
I couldn't, I couldn't. I couldn't kiss a man in that way!"

Late in the evening news came to Roussillon place, where Gaspard
Roussillon was once more happy in the midst of his little family, that
the Indian Long-Hair had just been brought to the fort, and would be
shot on the following day. A scouting party captured him as he
approached the town, bearing at his belt the fresh scalp of a white
man. He would have been killed forthwith, but Clark, who wished to
avoid a repetition of the savage vengeance meted out to the Indians on
the previous day, had given strict orders that all prisoners should be
brought into the fort, where they were to have a fair trial by court
martial.

Both Helm and Beverley were at Roussillon place, the former sipping
wine and chatting with Gaspard, the latter, of course, hovering around
Alice, after the manner of a hungry bee around a particularly sweet and
deliciously refractory flower. It was raining slowly, the fine drops
coming straight down through the cold, still February air; but the two
young people found i