"Want, do you ask? What would any honest man want? Yes, I was shot, and left for dead. But my good friends nursed me to health, malgre moll And now I am come to claim what is my own."
By this time James Morris had noted the appearance of the newcomers, and leaving his work over the ruins, he walked forward to see who they were.
"Can it be possible that this is Jean Bevoir!" he ejaculated.
"Yes, father," answered Dave. "The report that he was killed was false."
"But the soldiers were so sure—"
"They made a mistake. It is Jean Bevoir beyond any doubt."
"So you are here," declared the Frenchman, glaring darkly at the trader. "I was told that the Englishmen had come no further westward than Fort Duquesne."
"You mean Fort Pitt," answered James Morris pointedly. "Fort Duquesne is a thing of the past."
"Some day the fort shall come back to its own," put in one of Bevoir's companions, whose name was Jacques Valette. "You English have but a slim foothold."
"That is a matter of opinion, Valette," answered James Morris. He knew Jacques Valette to be a hunter of the rougher sort, given to much fighting and dissipating. "The war is at an end, and for the present my country is master of the situation."