The rain was over, the sky shone like one vast luminary, with a
nearly full moon and a thousand stars reinforcing it. Up from the
south poured one of those balmy, accidental wind floods, sometimes
due in February on the Wabash, full of tropical dream-hints, yet
edged with a winter chill that smacks of treachery. Oncle Jazon
was unusually talkative; he may have had a deep draught of liquor;
at all events Beverley had little room for a word.
"Well, bein' as it's twixt us, as is bosom frien's," the old
fellow presently said, "I'll jes' show ye somepin poorty."
He pricked the wick of a lamp and took down his bunch of scalps.
"I hev been a addin' one more to keep company o' mine an' the
tothers."
He separated the latest acquisition from the rest of the wisp and
added, with a heinous chuckle:
"This'n's Long-Hair's!"
And so it was. Beverley knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose
to go.
"Wen they kicks yer Oncle Jazon's ribs," the old man added,
"they'd jes' as well lay down an' give up, for he's goin' to
salervate 'em."
Then, after Beverley had passed out of the cabin, Oncle Jazon
chirruped after him:
"Mebbe ye'd better not tell leetle Alice. The pore leetle gal hev
hed worry 'nough."
CHAPTER XXII
CLARK ADVISES ALICE
A few days after the surrender of Hamilton, a large boat, the
Willing, arrived from Kaskaskia.
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