Lieutenant Beverley found much to interest him in the quaint town;
but the piece de resistance was Oncle Jazon, who proved to be both
fascinating and unmanageable; a hard nut to crack, yet possessing
a kernel absolutely original in flavor. Beverley visited him one
evening in his hut--it might better be called den--a curiously
built thing, with walls of vertical poles set in a quadrangular
trench dug in the ground, and roofed with grass. Inside and out it
was plastered with clay, and the floor of dried mud was as smooth
and hard as concrete paving. In one end there was a wide fireplace
grimy with soot, in the other a mere peep-hole for a window: a
wooden bench, a bed of skins and two or three stools were barely
visible in the gloom. In the doorway Oncle Jazon sat whittling a
slender billet of hickory into a ramrod for his long flint-lock
American rifle.
"Maybe ye know Simon Kenton," said the old man, after he and
Beverley had conversed for a while, "seeing that you are from
Kentucky--eh?"
"Yes, I do know him well; he's a warm personal friend of mine,"
said Beverley with quick interest, for it surprised him that Oncle
Jazon should know anything about Kenton. "Do you know him,
Monsieur Jazon?"
Oncle Jazon winked conceitedly and sighted along his rudimentary
ramrod to see if it was straight; then puckering his lips, as if
on the point of whistling, made an affirmative noise quite
impossible to spell.
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