A Man of Two Countries Part 5

he cried.

"Better than Fort Benton?" questioned Danvers hopefully.

"You are here, Phil," came the quick answer from the Southerner, with his old, appealing charm of voice and smile.

Night fell as they surveyed the scene. The freighters had built camp-fires and the flare lighted the scene weirdly as they walked toward Burroughs' trading-post. Latimer greeted all as comrades, even the officers in mufti, and Danvers, seeing the responsive smiles, realized how a sunny nature receives what it sheds.

"Whose outfit came in with Charlie's?" inquired Danvers, as they neared the store.

"The mule teams? Oh, that was McDevitt--an odd character, from all I hear; Charlie gave me his version on the way up."

Danvers waited for the narrator to continue.

"He is what they call a missionary-trader--though evidently there is little difference in the varieties in this country. He's supposed, however, to be an example to the Indians, and to furnish them with material supplies, as well as spiritual food."

As they entered Burroughs' store, the trader met them cordially.

"Glad to see yeh, Latimer," he said, grasping the outstretched hands. "I 'spose yeh've seen that pretty Miss Thornhill every day since we left Fort Benton," he went on. "That's a girl for yeh!"

Danvers felt his face change. He had not yet ventured to broach Miss Thornhill's name. This loud mention of her in the rough crowd was unbearable.

Latimer made a vague reply. He sympathized with Danvers' involuntary stiffening.

"Well, glad to see yeh!" repeated Burroughs, after more questions and answers. "Make yerself to home. Guess yer glad to see yer friend," he said, turning to Danvers. "Yeh ain't seemed to take up with any of us fellers," and he pa.s.sed on to other arrivals.

It was not long before McDevitt entered, having come, evidently, to provoke a quarrel with Burroughs. While argument waxed hot between the rival traders over the respective s.h.i.+pping points for furs and the tariff on buffalo robes, Danvers and Latimer looked around the long building lined with cotton sheeting not yet stained or grimed. Blankets, beads, bright cloth, guns, bright ribbons, scalping-knives, shot, powder and flints (the Indians had not seen many matches), stood out against the light background. The bizarre effect was heightened by the garb of the men. Suits of buckskin, gay sashes, blankets and buffalo robes decked traders, scouts or Indians, as the case might be, while the trooper costume--red tunics, tiny forage caps, and blue trousers with yellow stripes--accentuated the riot of color. A few bales of furs, of little value, were on the high counters. In the warehouse in the rear, however, hanging from unhewn beams or piled in heaps, were buffalo robes and skins of all the fur-bearing animals, awaiting s.h.i.+pment to Fort Benton.

The babel of tongues grew louder. Burroughs' quick temper suffered from McDevitt's repeated a.s.sertion that Americans were ruining the fur trade by paying the Indians more than the Canadian traders.

"I'm losing money right along," McDevitt affirmed.

"Th' h.e.l.l yeh are!" sneered Burroughs. "Yeh preach an' then rob; rob an'

preach. _I_ pay a fair price an' don't invite the Injuns to git religion in the same breath that I offer 'em a drink o' smuggled whiskey."

"You! _You_--talking! You sell more whiskey than any other trader in the Whoop Up Country, right here under the noses of the Police!"

"Prove it!" taunted Burroughs provokingly. "'F the Police ever suspect me an' make a search, they'll not fin' me holdin' a prayer-meetin', same's they did you not so very long ago. Le'me see--how much was yer fine, anyway?" with a laugh.

"Is that so? Think yeh're smart, don' yeh?" snarled McDevitt, furious.

"Look here, Bob Burroughs, come out an' we'll settle this right here an'

now! No? Well, let me tell yeh this! Yeh'll be sorry yeh said that.

Bygones is bygones, an' I don't want that fine throwed up in my face again!"

"Did yeh say just the exact amount of the fine?" repeated Burroughs, disdaining to fight either in or out of his trading-post.

McDevitt's voice shook with vehemence as he strode from the crowded room.

"I'll have something to throw up to you, Bob Burroughs, some o' these days. I'm like a Injun, I furgive 'n furgit, but I'm campin' on yer trail! Yeh won't be so smilin' then--le'me tell yeh!"

"An' the fine?" once more insisted Burroughs, as McDevitt vanished, amid a roar of laughter at the American's persistence.

The moon was rising when Danvers wended his way to the barracks an hour later, Arthur walking to the reservation fence with him.

"I wish we could prove where the Indians and 'breeds get their whiskey,"

said Danvers.

"Haven't you any idea?"

"Suspicion is not certainty," dryly.

"It's a queer world," thought Latimer aloud.

"But we're 'pioneers of a glorious future,'" quoted Danvers, lightly.

"It will all come out right." He longed to hear of Eva Thornhill, hesitated, then inquired: "Was Miss Thornhill at Fort Benton when you left?"

"Yes. She asked several times about you." Danvers took off his cap. So she remembered him. "But she asked for Bob, too." The cap went on.

"We'll all make a try for her heart, old man," laughed Latimer. "By the way," he added, as they paused before separating for the night, "that wasn't a bad looking squaw I saw just as we left Bob's. What is her name?"

"The one to our right, as we struck the trail? That was Pine Coulee.

She's Scar Faced Charlie's squaw, but Burroughs is trying to get her away from him. However, one of her own tribe, Me-Casto, or Red Crow, will steal her some of these days. He hates the white men because they take the likely squaws."

"Whew!" whistled the visitor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter II

Hate

A day or two after Christmas, O'Dwyer, a lonely sentinel on his midnight beat, strode with measured step, alert, on duty. Outside the town, Robert Burroughs skulked toward the lodge, while Me-Casto followed covertly.

An hour afterward O'Dwyer heard moccasined feet approaching the stockade gate. Challenging quickly, his "Halt, who goes there?" was answered by Me-Casto. As that Indian had done some scouting for the Police, the postern gate was unlocked, after some delay, and Me-Casto admitted to the Colonel's presence.

When Me-Casto left the fort, Danvers, lying deep in sleep, with others of his troop, felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Don't speak," whispered the orderly sergeant, who roused them. "Get up and dress for special duty. Report at stables at once, armed."

The men knew what was before them. They had been so roused before, when it was expedient to have some party leave the fort with secrecy, and it was not long before the chill water of the ford splashed them as they rode away from the sleeping town and garrison.

Almost before the sound of carefully led horses had died away, Toe String Joe was dressing, and soon was making his way through a secret opening in the stockade where he had sawed off a log near the ground and hung it with wooden pins to each adjoining post in such a manner that it would easily swing.

As he lay on his cot of woven willows, he had watched, with narrowed eyelids, his comrades leave the troop room. Now he must report to his chief. The fort was soon behind him. Arriving at Burroughs' store, he pa.s.sed to the rear and tapped on the small pane of gla.s.s doing duty as a window. He tapped again, again; then turned, cursing, to find Burroughs at his elbow.

"What's up?" Burroughs interrupted Joe's blasphemy.