Rogers looked at him queerly. “I been a-thinkin’ about that gal,” he said. “I got an idea that----” Jack interrupted. Jack had gotten used to interrupting Rogers, having found that that was the only way to get a word in when the old man held the floor. “Hurry back,” he said. “No! Hold on! I won’t wait for you to come back here. Cut across the Black Swamp and join me at Fort Defiance or wherever General Winchester and the army may be. I’ll go there and wait for you.” The old hunter got up. “I sure will,” he assented, with alacrity. “I’ll start right away. I reckon, though, I’ll get more from Madame Fantine than I will from Peter.” Jack’s excitement lessened. A quizzical light came into his eyes. Rogers’s liking for Fantine was no secret to him. “Maybe you will,” he conceded. “Fantine is very kind hearted. It’s a great pity”--meditatively--“that she talks so much.” A faint color tinged the old hunter’s leathery cheeks. “Who? Her?” he mumbled. “She--she--Well? What in thunder do you expect a woman to do? Ain’t a woman got a tongue? Why shouldn’t she use it. What I hate is to hear men talking so much. Anybody that cooks like Madame Fantine sure has got a right to talk. But, all right. Laugh if you want to. I’ll be right off and I’ll join you as quick as the Lord’ll let me.” Allowing no chance for reply the old man hastened nimbly from the room. After Rogers had gone the days passed slowly, while Jack gathered strength and made ready to be gone. His horses had vanished--commandeered for the use of the army--and no others were to be had. Winter, however, was at hand and he set himself to follow the custom of the country and to learn to use both skates and snowshoes. Cato had learned also, at first with many protests, but later with mounting delight. “Lord, Mars’ Jack,” he said, one day. “I sutinly do wish Mandy could see me on these yere things. I lay she’d cook me the bestest dinner I ever seed.” Jack nodded. “I reckon she would, Cato!” he agreed. “But you want to be mighty careful. We’re going a good many miles on the ice and if you fell and hit your head----” “My head!” Cato looked bewildered. “Lord, Mars’ Jack, if dat Injun couldn’t hurt my head with that axe of his’n, how you figger out I gwine to hurt it on the ice?” Jack grinned. “Of course you wouldn’t hurt your head,” he agreed. “But the ice isn’t more than a foot thick and if you hit it with your head you’d probably knock a hole in it and we’d both go through and be drowned.” As Jack’s skill in skating grew, his impatience to be gone increased, the more so as the seat of war, after centering for a time at Fort Defiance (where a new fort, Fort Winchester, had been built to defend the frontier against the hordes of savages that hung along the frontier), had begun to move down the river. When Jack heard that General Winchester in command had boasted that he would take Fort Malden in thirty days he refused to delay longer.