"All right, Oncle Jazon," said Rene laughing and blowing the smoke out of his pistol; "'twas you all the same who let Long-Hair trot off with the Governor's brandy, not I. If you could have hit even a door-post it might have been better." 

 Oncle Jazon took off his cap and looked down into it in a way he had when about to say something final. 

 "Ventrebleu! I did not shoot at Long-Hair at all," he said, speaking slowly, "because the scoundrel was unarmed. He didn't have on even a knife, and he was havin' enough to do dodgin' the bullets that the rest of 'em were plumpin' at 'im without any compliments from me to bother 'im more." 

 "Well," Rene replied, turning away with a laugh, "if I'd been scalped by the Indians, as you have, I don't think there would be any particular reason why I should wait for an Indian thief to go and arm himself before I accepted him as a target." 

 Oncle Jazon lifted a hand involuntarily and rubbed his scalpless crown; then he chuckled with a grotesque grimace as if the recollection of having his head skinned were the funniest thing imaginable. 

 "When you've killed as many of 'em as Oncle Jazon has," remarked a bystander to Rene, "you'll not be so hungry for blood, maybe." 

 "Especially after ye've took fifty-nine scalps to pay for yer one," added Oncle Jazon, replacing his cap over the hairless area of his crown. 

 The men who had been chasing Long-Hair, presently came straggling back with their stories—each had a distinct one—of how the fugitive escaped. They were wild looking fellows, most of them somewhat intoxicated, all profusely liberal with their stock of picturesque profanity. They represented the roughest element of the well-nigh lawless post. 

 "I'm positive that he's wounded," said one. "Jacques and I shot at him together, so that our pistols sounded just as if only one had been fired—bang! that way—and he leaped sideways for all the world like a bird with a broken leg. I thought he'd fall; but ve! he ran faster'n ever, and all at once he was gone; just disappeared." 

 "Well, to-morrow we'll get him," said another. "You and I and Jacques, we'll take up his trail, the thief, and follow him till we find him. He can't get off so easy." 

 "I don't know so well about that," said another; "it's Long-Hair, you must remember, and Long-Hair is 

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