"Poor boy! It is a shame. But I say, Lieutenant, has Roussillon really escaped, or is he hidden somewhere in town? Have you been careful?"
"Oh, it's the Indians. They all swear by these Frenchmen. You can't get any help from them against a fellow like Roussillon. In fact they aid him; he's among them now."
"Moral again," Helm interposed; "keep on the good side of the French!"
"That's sensible talk, sir," assented Barlow.
"Bah!" exclaimed Hamilton. "You might as well talk of keeping on the good side of the American traitors—a bloody murrain seize the whole race!"
"That's what I say," chimed in the Lieutenant, with a sly look at Helm.
"They have been telling me a cock-and-bull story concerning the affair at the Roussillon cabin," Hamilton said, changing his manner. "What is this about a disguised and wonderful man who rushed in and upset the whole of you. I want no romancing; give me the facts."
Barlow's dissolute countenance became troubled.
"The facts," he said, speaking with serious deliberation, "are not clear. It was like a clap of thunder, the way that man performed. As you say, he did fling the whole squad all of a heap, and it was done that quickly," he snapped his thumb and finger demonstratively with a sharp report; "nobody could understand it."
Hamilton looked at his subaltern with a smile of unlimited contempt and said: