baffling pursuit. Indeed pursuit was baffled. No further trace
could be found, by which to follow the cunning fugitive. Some of
the men consoled themselves by saying, without believing, that
Long-Hair was probably lying drowned at the bottom of the river.

"Pas du tout," observed Oncle Jazon, his short pipe askew far over
in the corner of his mouth, "not a bit of it is that Indian
drowned. He's jes' as live as a fat cat this minute, and as drunk
as the devil. He'll get some o' yer scalps yet after he's guzzled
all that brandy and slep' a week."

It finally transpired that Oncle Jazon was partly right and partly
wrong. Long-Hair was alive, even as a fat cat, perhaps; but not
drunk, for in trying to swim with the rotund little dame jeanne
under his arm he lost hold of it and it went to the bottom of the
Wabash, where it may be lying at this moment patiently waiting for
some one to fish it out of its bed deep in the sand and mud, and
break the ancient wax from its neck!

Rene de Ronville, after the chase of Long-Hair had been given
over, went to tell Father Beret what had happened, and finding the
priest's hut empty turned into the path leading to the Roussillon
place, which was at the head of a narrow street laid out in a
direction at right angles to the river's course. He passed two or
three diminutive cabins, all as much alike as bee-hives. Each had
its squat veranda and thatched or clapboarded roof held in place
by weight-poles ranged in roughly parallel rows, and each had the
face of the wall under its veranda neatly daubed with a grayish
stucco made of mud and lime. You may see such houses today in some
remote parts of the creole country of Louisiana.