I talks whenever I gits ready, an' I shoots
jes' the same way. So ye'd better go on '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.
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