A Man of Two Countries Part 4

These vibrating adjurations, rending the balmy Sunday air, would have amazed and shocked the citizens of a more cultured community, but served in Fort Benton merely to start Scar Faced Charlie's bull-team, loaded almost beyond hauling.

Charlie's shouts, delivered in the vernacular which he avoided when his small kin was near, waked Philip Danvers, and soon he was outside the walls of the 'dobe fort which Major Thornhill had courteously placed at the service of the Canadian officer and his recruits. He called to the driver and fell into step beside the bull-team heading for the western bluffs, while the bull-whacker told him that little Winifred was being cared for by "a real nice old lady."

As he returned to town, after a pleasant good-by, he turned more than once to note the slow, swinging plod of the bulls. Finally he walked more briskly, and, finding the doctor and Latimer, they sought the levees, where the bustle and hustle of the frontier town were most apparent. Early as it was, the river-front was thronged with river-men, American and English soldiers; traders, busy, preoccupied and alert; clerks, examining and checking off goods; bull-whackers and mule-skinners; wolfers and trappers, half-breeds and Indians, gamblers and squaws--all constantly s.h.i.+fting and reforming into kaleidoscopic groups and jovial comrades.h.i.+p.

Everywhere he encountered the covert hostility toward the English, but it was not until late in the afternoon that it became openly manifest.

"Hi there!" a staggering man hiccoughed as he turned to follow Philip and his American friends.

"Go slow, so's folks c'n take yeh in. I'm goin' to kick yeh off'n the face of the earth," he continued, prodding uncertainly at Danvers.

"Stop, I tell yeh! Why do I want yeh to walk slow? 'Cos (hic) I want to wipe the road up with yer English hide. Yeh think yeh're all ri', but yeh ain't. Yeh look's if yeh owned the town, an' yeh're walk's convincin', yeh----"

"That's Wild Cat Bill," said the kindly man of drugs, seeking to remove the sting whose effect Danvers only partially succeeded in concealing, as they outdistanced the drunken man. "He's ostensibly a wolfer, a man who kills wolves by scattering poisoned buffalo meat on the prairies in winter, you know," he interjected, "and then makes his rounds later to gather up the dead wolves which have feasted not wisely, but too well.

He's a great friend of Sweet Oil Bob's."

Before Danvers had time to speak they pa.s.sed Burroughs in close conversation with Toe String Joe.

"Those three! Bob and Joe and Bill!" snorted the doctor contemptuously.

"You'll likely see considerable of Bob's friends if he goes to Macleod.

He might be 'most anything he liked--he's clever enough, but unscrupulous. He's crafty enough to get the most of his work done by his confreres. He can speak English as well as I can, but he thinks bad grammar will give him a stand-in with the frontiersmen. And it's easy for a man to live on a lower level. He'll be sorry some day to find himself out of practice, when the right girl comes along."

"Here he comes--he's behind us," warned Latimer.

As Burroughs pa.s.sed them he threw a glance of triumph that was unexplainable until a corner turned brought to view Major Thornhill, also walking abroad, accompanied by his daughter. Burroughs, smooth, ingratiating, joined them as if by appointment.

After Philip retired that night the monotone of the soldiers' talk merged into confused and indistinct recollections of his first Sunday at Fort Benton. Eva Thornhill's scornful yet inviting face seemed drawing him through deep waters, to be replaced by the face of the child Winifred, terror-stricken as when she was in the river. Then came the memory of the even-song at home, threading its sweetly haunting way through the wild shouts of a frontier town that continued joyously its night of revelry, until, at last, he fell asleep.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

BOOK II

_THE PRAIRIE_

_"On Darden plain The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch Their brave pavilions."

--Troilus and Cressida_

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter I

Under the Union Jack

The arrival of the troopers at Fort Macleod, after the long journey on horseback over the prairie, was a relief to Philip Danvers, and the weeks that followed were full of interest. Nevertheless, he felt a loneliness which was all the greater when he remembered his new-found friends at Fort Benton. The two hundred miles that separated him from the doctor and Arthur Latimer might have been two thousand for all he saw of them, and save for an occasional letter from the hopeful Southerner he had little that could be called companions.h.i.+p. Among all the troopers and traders there were none that appealed to Danvers, and had it not been for the devotion of O'Dwyer he would have been alone indeed.

This gay Irish trooper had come out the year previous, and when the recruits arrived from Fort Benton had been the first to welcome them, "from the owld counthry." There was nothing in common between the silent Englishman and this son of Erin, but from the night when Danvers had discovered him, some miles from the Fort, deserted by his two convivial companions, and had a.s.sisted him to the barracks, O'Dwyer had been his loyal subject and devoted slave.

Now, after three months, his zeal had not abated, and while Danvers lay stretched on the bank of the wide slough, O'Dwyer could be seen, not far distant, sunning himself like a contented dog at his master's feet.

Long the English lad lay looking over the infinite reaches of tranquil prairie, domed with a cloudless September sky.

This island in Old Man's River had become the little world in which he lived. To the right was the Fort--a square stockade of cottonwood logs, enclosing the low, mud-roofed officers' quarters, the barracks, the quartermaster's stores, and the stables. To the left, and separated from the fort by a gully, straggled the village of Fort Macleod. Conspicuous, with its new board front, loomed the trading post of Robert Burroughs.

These beginnings of civilization seemed out of place in the splendid, supreme calm of nature. Against the s.p.a.ce and stillness it appeared crude and impertinent.

Across the river he saw the Indian lodges, and heard the distant hallo from rollicking comrades, swimming on the opposite side of the island.

The troopers, the traders and the 'breeds were as dependent upon one another as if they were a colony upon an island in mid-ocean. He did not care to be with these men, but he desired comrades.h.i.+p. How could he overcome his natural reserve, make friends, yet not sacrifice his individuality and family traditions? He recalled his father's haughty: "a.s.sociate with your own kind, or walk the path alone." But he was too young to find joy in aloofness. The facility of speech, the adaptive moulding to another's mood was not in him!

"I'll have to be myself," he concluded. "I never cared before for men's good-will; but Arthur Latimer's camaraderie has made me see things differently."

O'Dwyer slept peacefully in the late afternoon, and Danvers envied him the contentment of his simple nature. He drew a package of letters from his red tunic and fingered them idly as he read the addresses. He selected the last from Arthur Latimer and read again the already familiar lines:

_I am coming to the Whoop Up Country with Scar Faced Charlie. He leaves again for Fort Macleod in about a week. The doctor says that office work is bad for me and that I ought to get out in the open for a year or two. Really I am curious to see you in your giddy uniform, and shall enjoy a visit, though if I could get work I might stay permanently._

_How is Burroughs progressing? Is he selling beads and tea to the Indians at a thousand per cent. profit, or selling them whisky on the Q. T. at fifty thousand per cent. profit? How are you and he hitting it off?_

_I saw Miss Thornhill last week, but, between you and me, poor devils of lawyers are not what my lady wants._

As Danvers folded the letter and replaced it, he felt a thrill of gladness at the thought of the meeting. There would be some one to share his joy in the sunsets and the prairie distances.

Then the future swept toward him; he wondered if this companions.h.i.+p with his friend would be all that he should ever know. The intangible, divine understanding that others knew--the possibility of an appreciation that would be sweet, came vaguely into his awakening heart. He took a newspaper clipping from his notebook and read:

_There is an interesting old Chinese legend which relates how an angel sits with a long pole which he dips into the Sea of Love and lifts a drop of s.h.i.+ning water. With an expert motion he turns one-half of this drop to the right, the other half to the left, where each is immediately transformed into a soul, a male and a female; and these souls go seeking each other forever._

_The angel is so constantly occupied that he keeps no track of the souls that he separates, and they must depend on their own intuition to recognize each other._

The golden haze of the setting sun was not more glorious than the dreams that came of a loved one ever near, of a son to perpetuate his name; but the trumpet's brazen call sounding retreat, and its echoing reverberations, made Danvers spring to his feet, romance and sentiment laid aside. The present satisfied. Soldiering was good.

O'Dwyer sat up rubbing his eyes, with an exclamation of surprise at the late hour.

As they ran through the big, open gate with its guard-room and sentry, they saw Burroughs moving toward the lodges near the timber on the eastern side of the island, while Toe String Joe, leaving his crony, came to the fort.

"Sweet Oil Bob's a favorite in the lodges all roight," remarked O'Dwyer.

"There'll be trouble if he don't let Scar Faced Charlie's squaw alone."

"Pine Coulee?" questioned Danvers.

"The same!" said O'Dwyer, and with a salute prompted by affection and not military compulsion he left Danvers at the barracks.

The arrival of Arthur Latimer with Scar Faced Charlie, making his second trip since Danvers came to Macleod, unexpectedly settled most of the problems baffling the silent and lonely Danvers. Charlie's freighting outfit pulled into Macleod when the troops were drilling, and Philip, though attentive to the commands of his superior, looked across the gully and watched the gate-framed picture of the arrival of supplies.

The lurching wagons, the bulls, the men and dogs, loomed large as their slow movements brought them into the one street of Fort Macleod. Though there were two outfits, Danvers instantly recognized Scar Faced Charlie, and saw Latimer run across the dry gully. He warmed with delight as the troops swept along in their evolutions, for he knew his friend was watching, and he smiled a welcome as Arthur's cap rose high in happy salute.

After the parade Philip joined Latimer. The clasp of their hands told more than the conventional greetings. They leaned on the rail fence of the reservation and Latimer looked round eagerly. "I like it up here!"