s sputtered and winked with their yellow flames.

"Well," said M. Roussillon, coming to where Alice and Beverley stood
insulated and isolated by their great delight in each other's company,
"it's time to go home."

Beverley looked at his watch; it was a quarter to three!

Alice also looked at the watch, and saw engraved and enameled on its
massive case the Beverley crest, but she did not know what it meant.
There was something of the sort in the back of her locket, she
remembered with satisfaction.

Just then there was a peculiar stir in the flagging crowd. Someone had
arrived, a coureur de bois from the north. Where was the commandant?
the coureur had something important for him.

Beverley heard a remark in a startled voice about the English getting
ready for a descent upon the Wabash valley. This broke the charm which
thralled him and sent through his nerves the bracing shock that only a
soldier can feel when a hint of coming battle reaches him.

Alice saw the flash in his face.

"Where is Captain Helm? I must see him immediately. Excuse me," he
said, abruptly turning away and looking over the heads of the people;
"yonder he is, I must go to him."

The coureur de bois, Adolphe Dutremble by name, was just from the head
waters of the Wabash. He was speaking to Helm when Beverley came up. M.
Roussillon followed close upon the Lieutenant's heels, as eager as he
to know what the message amounted to; but Helm took the coureur aside,
motioning Beverley to join them. M. Roussillon included himself in the
conference.

After all it was but the gossip of savages that Dutremble communicated;
still the purport was startling in the extreme. Governor Hamilton, so
the story ran, had been organizing a large force; he was probably now
on his way to the portage of the Wabash with a flotilla of batteaux,
some companies of disciplined soldiers, artillery and a strong body of
Indians.

Helm listened attentively to Dutremble's lively sketch, then
cross-questioned him with laconic directness.

"Send Mr. Jazon to me," he said to M. Roussillon, as if speaking to a
servant.

The master Frenchman went promptly, recognizing Captain Helm's right to
command, and sympathizing With his unpleasant military predicament if
the news should prove true.

Oncle Jazon came in a minute, his fiddle and bow clamped under his arm,
to receive a verbal commission, which sent him with some scouts of his
own choosing forthwith to the Wabash portage,