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.
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