The creoles were loyal to the cause of freedom; moreover, they cordially hated Hamilton, and their hearts beat high at the prospect of a change in masters at the fort.

Every cabin had its hidden gun and supply of ammunition, despite the order to disarm issued by Hamilton.

There was a hustling to bring these forth, which was accompanied with a guarded yet irrepressible chattering, delightfully French and infinitely volatile.
"Tiens! je vais frotter mon fusil.

J'ai vu un singe!" said Jaques Bourcier to his daughter, the pretty Adrienne, who was coming out of the room in which Alice lay.
"I saw a monkey just now; I must rub up my gun!" He could not be solemn; not he.

The thought of an opportunity to get even with Hamilton was like wine in his blood.
If you had seen those hardy and sinewy Frenchmen gliding in the dusk of evening from cottage to cottage, passing the word that the Americans had arrived, saying airy things and pinching one another as they met and hurried on, you would have thought something very amusing and wholly jocund was in preparation for the people of Vincennes.
There was a current belief in the town that Gaspard Roussillon never missed a good thing and always somehow got the lion's share.