"Your question is a remarkable one. Have you thought upon it from all directions, my son? Think of your position, your duty as an officer."
A shrewd polemical expression beamed from Father Beret's eyes, and a very expert physiogomist might have suspected duplicity from certain lines about the old man's mouth.
"I simply know that I cannot stand by and see Alice—Mademoiselle Roussillon, forced to suffer treatment too beastly for an Indian thief. That's the only direction there is for me to look at it from, and you can understand my feelings if you will; you know that very well, Father Beret. When a man loves a girl, he loves her; that's the whole thing.".
The quiet, inscrutable half-smile flickered once more on Father Beret's face; but he sat silent some time with a sinewy forefinger lying alongside his nose. When at last he spoke it was in a tone of voice indicative of small interest in what he was saying. His words rambled to their goal with the effect of happy accident.
"There are places in this neighborhood in which a human being would be as hard to find as the flag that you and Governor Hamilton have so diligently and unsuccessfully been in quest of for the past month or two. Really, my son, this is a mysterious little town."
Farnsworth's eyes widened and a flush rose in his swarthy cheeks.
"Damn the flag!" he exclaimed. "Let it lie hidden forever; what do I care? I tell you, Father Beret, that Alice Roussillon is in extreme danger. Governor Hamilton means to put some terrible punishment on her. He has a devil's vindictiveness. He showed it to me clearly awhile ago."
"You showed something of the same sort to me, once upon a time, my son."
"Yes, I did, Father Beret, and I got a load of slugs in my shoulder for it from that brave girl's pistol. She saved your life. Now I ask you to help me save hers; or, if not her life, what is infinitely more, her honor."
"Her honor!" cried Father Beret, leaping to his feet so suddenly and with such energy that the cabin shook from base to roof. "What do you say, Captain Farnsworth? What do you mean?"