A Man of Two Countries Part 1

A Man of Two Countries.

by Alice Harriman.

TO THE READER

Prior to the days of the cowboy and the range, the settler and irrigation, the State and the Province, an ebb and flow of Indians, traders, trappers, wolfers, buffalo-hunters, whiskey smugglers, missionaries, prospectors, United States soldiery and newly organized North West Mounted Police crossed and recrossed the international boundary between the American Northwest and what was then known as the "Whoop Up Country." This heterogeneous flotsam and jetsam held some of the material from which Montana evolved its later statehood.

To one who came to know and to love the region after the surging tide had exterminated the buffalo and worse than exterminated the Indian,--to one who appreciates the limitless possibilities of the splendid Commonwealth of Montana on the one side and the great Province of Alberta on the other of that invisible line which now draws together instead of separating men of a common tongue, this period seems tremendously interesting. The "local color" has, perhaps, not been squeezed from too many tubes. Types stand out; never individuals.

As types, therefore, the characters of this book weave their story as the shuttle of time, filled with the woof of hidden purpose and open deed, runs through the warp of their friends.h.i.+ps and enmities.

And with the less attractive strands the s.h.i.+fting harness of place and circ.u.mstance enmeshes a thread of Love's gold.

BOOK I

_THE RIVER_

_"I beheld the westward marches Of the ... nations, Restless, struggling, toiling, striving."_ --_Longfellow_

Chapter I

Twisting the Lion's Tail

Philip Danvers, heading a small party of hors.e.m.e.n, galloped around the corner of a warehouse and pulled up on the levee at Bismarck as the mate of the _Far West_ bellowed, "Let 'er go!"

"Hold on!" he shouted, leaping from his mount.

"Why in blazes!" The mate's impatience flared luridly as he ordered the gang-plank replaced. His heat ignited the smouldering resentment of the pa.s.sengers, and they, too, exploded.

"We're loaded to the guards now!" yelled one.

"Yeh can't come aboard!" threatened another.

"Haven't yeh got a full pa.s.senger list a'ready, Captain?" demanded a bl.u.s.tering, heavy-set man with beetling eyebrows, as he pushed himself angrily through the crowding men to the deck-rail.

"Can't help it if I have, Burroughs," retorted the autocrat of the river-boat. "These troopers are recruits for the North West Mounted Police----"

"The h.e.l.l yeh say!"

Philip Danvers noted the unfriendly eye, and realized that this burly fellow dominated even the captain.

"Their pa.s.sage was engaged three months ago," went on the officer.

"It's nothing to me," affirmed Burroughs, reddening in his effort to regain his surface amenity.

The young trooper, superintending the loading of the horses, resented the manifest unfriendliness toward the English recruits. A dreary rain added discomfort, and the pa.s.sengers growled at the slow progress. .h.i.therto made against the spring floods of the turbulent Missouri and this prolonged delay at Bismarck.

As he went up the gang-plank and walked along the deck, bits of conversation came to him.

"He looks like an officer," said one, with a jerk of his thumb in his direction.

"An officer! Where? D'yeh mean the dark-haired one?" The voice was that of Burroughs again, and as Danvers met his insolent eye an instant antagonism flashed between the roughly dressed frontiersman and the lean-flanked, broad-shouldered English youth.

"h.e.l.lo! 'F there ain't Toe String Joe!" continued Burroughs, recognizing the last to come on board, as the line was cast off and the steamer backed into the stream. "What you doin' here, Joe?"

"I met up with these here Britishers when they came in on the train from the East, an' I'm goin' t' enlist," admitted the shambling Joe, his breath confirming his appearance. "Where you been?"

"Back to the States to get my outfit. I'm goin' ter start in fer myself up to Fort Macleod. So you've decided to be a d.a.m.ned Britisher, eh?"

Burroughs reverted to Joe's statement. "Yeh'll have to take the oath of allegiance fer three years of enlistment. Did yeh know that?" He closed one eye, as if speculating how this might further his own interests.

"You'll make a fine police, Joe, you will!" he jeered in conclusion.

"You goin' to Fort Macleod?" questioned Joe. "You'll git no trade in Canada!"

"Don't yeh ever think it!" returned Burroughs, with a look that Danvers sub-consciously noted.

Beyond the crowd he saw a child, held by a man with a scarred face. His involuntary look of amazement changed the pensiveness of her delicate face to animation, and she returned his smile. This unexpected exchange of friends.h.i.+p restored his self-respect and his anger evaporated. He recalled the childhood spent in English lanes with his only sister. He beckoned enticingly, and soon she came near, shy and lovely.

"What's your name, little girl?"

"Winifred."

"That's a pretty name," said the young trooper. "Are you going to Fort Benton with your papa?"

"No. Papa's dead--and--mamma. That's my brother," indicating the man who had held her. "He came to get me. His name is Charlie."

"Dear little girl!" thought Philip Danvers, as the child ran to brotherly arms.

"Howdy!" Charlie gave unconventional greeting as he took a bench near by.

"I've been getting acquainted with your sister," explained the Englishman.

"Glad of it. Winnie's afraid of most o' the men, an' there aren't more'n three white women up the river. I've had to bring her back with me, and I don't know much about children. But there's one good old lady at Benton," the frontiersman proceeded, cheerfully. "She'll look after her.

You see, I'm away most of the time. I'm a freighter between the head of navigation and the Whoop Up Country--Fort Macleod."

"Oh!"

"I got the contract to haul the supplies for the North West Mounted Police this spring. I'll be in Fort Macleod 'most as soon as you, I reckon. What is it, Winnie?" he questioned, as the child drew shrinking closer to him.

"I don't like that man," a.s.serted Winifred, as Robert Burroughs pa.s.sed.