nd to listen.

"An' how well he shoots, too," he added with an intolerable wink;
"aimed at the door and hit the post. Certainly Long-Hair would have
been in great danger! O yes, he'd 'ave killed Long-Hair at the first
shot, wouldn't he though!"

Oncle Jazon had the air of a large man, but the stature of a small one;
in fact he was shriveled bodily to a degree which suggested comparison
with a sun-dried wisp of hickory bark; and when he chuckled, as he was
now doing, his mouth puckered itself until it looked like a scar on his
face. From cap to moccasins he had every mark significant of a
desperate character; and yet there was about him something that
instantly commanded the confidence of rough men,--the look of
self-sufficiency and superior capability always to be found in
connection with immense will power. His sixty years of exposure,
hardship, and danger seemed to have but toughened his physique and
strengthened his vitality. Out of his small hazel eyes gleamed a light
as keen as ice.

"All right, Oncle Jazon," said Rene laughing and blowing the smoke out
of his pistol; "'twas you all the same who let Long-Hair trot off with
the Governor's brandy, not I. If you could have hit even a door-post it
might have been better."

Oncle Jazon took off his cap and looked down into it in a way he had
when about to say something final.

"Ventrebleu! I did not shoot at Long-Hair at all," he said, speaking
slowly, "because the scoundrel was unarmed. He didn't have on even a
knife, and he was havin' enough to do dodgin' the bullets that the rest
of 'em were plumpin' at 'im without any compliments from me to bother
'im more."

"Well," Rene replied, turning away with a laugh, "if I'd been scalped
by the Indians, as you have, I don't think there would be any
particular reason why I should wait for an Indian thief to go and arm
himself before I accepted him as a target."

Oncle Jazon lifted a hand involuntarily and rubbed his scalpless crown;
then he chuckled with a grotesque grimace as if the recollection of
having his head skinned were the funniest thing imaginable.

"When you've killed as many of 'em as Oncle Jazon has," remarked a
bystander to Rene, "you'll not be so hungry for blood, maybe."

"Especially after ye've took fifty-nine scalps to pay for yer one,"
added Oncle Jazon, replacing his cap over the hairless area of his
crown.

The men who had been chasing Long-Hair, presently came straggling back
with their stor