“He’s some relation of Governor Henry’s,” said Captain Helm, a stout, jolly, red-faced officer from Virginia. “Clark told me he brought a letter from Henry to him, which asked him, as a personal favor, to make Frank his adjutant. The colonel hesitated, on account of the lad’s being so young, but I must say, gentlemen, I don’t ever remember seeing a smarter officer of his inches.”
“Thar’s the little cuss now,” cried Harrod, laughing, as the little officer rode out of a by street and came up to the bivouac. “I tell you, gentlemen, he are gritty, if he are small. Don’t he sit his hoss pritty? Gosh, if he war only a gal, wouldn’t he make a reg’lar ringtailed snorter! I c’u’d hug him myself.”
“He are pretty ’nuff fur a gal, that’s as true as Gospel, boys,” said Kenton, meditatively. “But, no gal c’u’d dash around the way he does; and he’s got the grit of a dozen wildcats.”
Here little Frank galloped up, on a very handsome mustang, which he rode in among the recumbent borderers with delicious coolness, causing them to tumble out of the way in a terrible hurry.
Had any one else in the command done such a thing, he would have been plucked off his animal and soundly beaten in a twinkling; but the little adjutant and his pony were general favorites, and seemed able to go anywhere, without offense.
“Well, Bowman,” cried the youngster, gayly, “your men are not good for much to search for arms, after all. Here’s a building, not fifty feet from your bivouac, with twelve Indians in it, every man fully armed and in his war-paint.”
“Oh, nonsense, Frank,” said the major, disbelieving him; “how could that be, and we not know it?”
“Ah, major, you’re not supposed to know every thing,” said the boy, saucily. “I heard all about it last night, but I didn’t want our stupid-heads to know it; for you couldn’t disarm those fellows in a hurry.”
“Are you serious, Frank?”
“Never more so.”