up here, on Ontario, I hold it to be a
most suspicious circumstance."

"But Jasper must talk in French to the people on the other shore," said
Pathfinder, "or hold his tongue, as there are none but French to speak
to."

"You don't mean to tell me, Pathfinder, that France lies hereaway, on
the opposite coast?" cried Cap, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the
direction of the Canadas; "that one side of this bit of fresh water is
York, and the other France?"

"I mean to tell you this is York, and that is Upper Canada; and that
English and Dutch and Indian are spoken in the first, and French and
Indian in the last. Even the Mingos have got many of the French words in
their dialect, and it is no improvement, neither."

"Very true: and what sort of people are the Mingos, my friend?" inquired
the Sergeant, touching the other on his shoulder, by way of enforcing a
remark, the inherent truth of which sensibly increased its value in the
eyes of the speaker: "no one knows them better than yourself, and I ask
you what sort of a tribe are they?"

"Jasper is no Mingo, Sergeant."

"He speaks French, and he might as well be, in that particular. Brother
Cap, can you recollect no movement of this unfortunate young man, in the
way of his calling, that would seem to denote treachery?"

"Not distinctly, Sergeant, though he has gone to work wrong-end foremost
half his time. It is true that one of his hands coiled a rope against
the sun, and he called it _querling_ a rope, too, when I asked him
what he was about; but I am not certain that anything was meant by it;
though, I daresay, the French coil half their running rigging the wrong
way, and may call it 'querling it down,' too, for that matter. Then
Jasper himself belayed the end of the jib-halyards to a stretcher in the
rigging, instead of bringing it to the mast, where they belong, at least
among British sailors."

"I daresay Jasper may have got some Canada notions about working his
craft, from being so much on the other side," Pathfinder interposed;
"but catching an idee, or a word, isn't treachery and bad faith. I
sometimes get an idee from the Mingos themselves; but my heart has
always been with the Delawares. No, no, Jasper is true; and the king
might trust him with his crown, just as he would trust his eldest son,
who, as he is to wear it one day, ought to be the last man to wish to
steal it."

"Fine talking, fine talking!" said Cap; "all fine talking, Master
Pathfind