Diable! if he could but come across that Lieutenant Barlow, how he would smash him and mangle him! In magnifying his prowess with the lens of imagination he swelled and puffed as he lumbered along.
The firing sounded as if it were between the fort and the river; but presently when one of Hamilton's cannon spoke, M.Roussillon saw the yellow spike of flame from its muzzle leap directly toward the church, and he thought it best to make a wide detour to avoid going between the firing lines.

Once or twice he heard the whine of a stray bullet high overhead.

Before he had gone very far he met a man hurrying toward the fort.

It was Captain Francis Maisonville, one of Hamilton's chief scouts, who had been out on a reconnoissance and, cut off from his party by some of Clark's forces, was trying to make his way to the main gate of the stockade.
M.Roussillon knew Maisonville as a somewhat desperate character, a leader of Indian forays and a trader in human scalps.

Surely the fellow was legitimate prey.
"Ziff! diable de gredin!" he snarled, and leaping upon him choked him to the ground, "Je vais vous scalper immediatement!" Clark's plan of approach showed masterly strategy.