A Man of Two Countries Part 3

The three looked at the river and at the long lances of light streaming from the East, then at the English youth, abstracted, aloof.

"Perhaps yeh did," a.s.sented Joe, easily. "But I know one thing. It'll stick in Bob's crop that he craw-fished----." A nod indicated his meaning. "Somehow Danvers strikes me as a stuck-up Britisher."

"A man shouldn't be d.a.m.ned for his look or his manner," exploded the doctor, although he recognized the truth of the criticism. "He's young and self-conscious. A year or two in the Whoop Up Country will season him and be the making of him."

"He'll not always stay in the Whoop Up Country," Charlie said, presciently. "I wish I could do something for him," he added. "He'll make his mark--somehow--somewhere."

"Prophesying, eh?" smiled the doctor. "All right; we'll see."

The light-draft, flat-bottomed _Far West_ made slow progress. The dead and broken snags, the "sawyers" of river parlance, fast in the sand-bars, seemed waiting to impale the steamboat. The lead-man called unceasingly from his position. One bluff yielded to another, a flat succeeded to a grove where wild roses burst into riotous bloom, and over all lay the enchantment of the gay, palpitant, young summer.

The journey was monotonous until, with a bend of the river, they sighted another steamer, the _Fontenelle_, stuck fast on Spread Eagle Bar--the worst bar of the Missouri. Among the pa.s.sengers at the rail Philip Danvers saw--could it be? a woman--a white woman, young and beautiful.

What could be her mission in that far country which seemed so vast to the young Englishman that each day's journey put years of civilization behind him?

The girl on the _Fontenelle_ was evidently enjoying the situation, and Danvers discovered at once that she was holding court on her own boat as well as commanding tribute from the _Far West_. The men about him stared eagerly at the slender, imperious figure, while Burroughs procured a gla.s.s from the mate and feasted his eyes.

"I'm goin' to see her at closer range," he declared, and soon had persuaded the captain to let him have a rowboat.

Philip and Latimer, by this time good friends, watched the trader go on board and disappear into the cabin.

"The nerve of that man amazes me!" declared Latimer. "What can he be thinking of?"

"Of the girl, and the first chance at Fort Benton!" answered the doctor, who joined the two in time to catch the remark. "If you'd known Bob Burroughs as long as I have at Fort Benton, you wouldn't be surprised at anything. He's determined to win, wherever you put him, and he'll make money easy enough."

"But his eagerness and offensiveness----" began Danvers.

"It isn't so much ignorance," explained the doctor, always ready to give credit wherever due. "He can talk English well enough when he thinks there is any occasion. He's one of the self-made sort, you know. But he doesn't estimate men correctly--puts them all a little too low--and that's where he's going to lose the game."

When Burroughs came back he was met with a fusillade of questions.

"Who is she, Bob?"

"Major Thornhill's daughter, Eva Thornhill."

"Didn't know he had a daughter," quoth Joe. "He never tol' me----"

This created a laugh, as Joe meant it should.

"The major hasn't been so social since he was stationed at Fort Benton, as to tell us his family affairs," reminded Charlie.

"Bob's thinkin' o' that girl," surmised the mate, openly, as Burroughs looked longingly toward the _Fontenelle_.

The boats, obstructed by the bar, were delayed the better part of two days, and came to feel quite neighborly. The enamoured Burroughs made another call, but he came back with a grievance.

"She wanted to know who the fellow was with the complexion like a girl's. I told her that if she meant Danvers," here he turned toward the object of his comment, "that he was nothin' but a private in the Canadian North West Mounted Police. She wasn't interested then,"

maliciously.

"Army girls don't look at anything under a lieutenant, you bet!"

seconded Toe String Joe. "She probably won't even take any notice of me!"

"She'd heard, through the captain, about the 'hero' who saved Charlie's sister, and she wanted to know all about it," sneered Burroughs.

"Did you tell her how the railin' happened to break?" insinuated Charlie.

Philip Danvers remembered the fling. However, what did it matter what Miss Thornhill thought of him or his position? He would probably never meet her. Yet as the _Far West_ followed the _Fontenelle_ up the river, he watched the girl's face turned, seemingly, toward him; and as the first steamer disappeared around a bend, the alluring eyes seemed like will-o'-the-wisps drawing him on. As he turned, other eyes, soft and affectionate, were upraised to his, and a child's hand crept into his with mute sympathy.

And thus by following the endless turn and twist of the erratic Missouri; warping over rapids and sticking on sand-bars; running by banks undermined by the flood; shaving here a sh.o.r.e and hugging there a bar; after the tie-ups to clean the boilers, or to get wood, or to wait for the high winds to abate; after perils by water and danger from roving Indians, the _Far West_ swung around the last curve of the river and behold--Fort Benton. The pa.s.sengers cheered; the crowds on the levees answered, while fluttering flags blossomed from boat and adobe fort and trading posts as wild roses blossom in spring.

"Whew!" whistled the doctor, wiping his forehead as he joined Philip and Latimer on the prow of the steamer. "It's warm. Here we are, at last. I wish," turning to Danvers, "that you were going to stay here. Latimer and I will miss you."

"Indeed we shall!" echoed the young lawyer. "Here we've just gotten to be friends and you must leave us. But you must write, old boy, and if I don't make a success of the law business at Fort Benton, I'll run up to Fort Macleod and make you a visit, while I look over the situation."

The Americanism of the phrase "law business" struck oddly on British ears, as lacking in dignity. Philip thought of "doctor business,"

"artist business," and wondered if Americans spoke thus of all professions. Latimer changed the subject.

"Is this all there is to Fort Benton?" with a wave of his hand.

"Sure," answered the doctor, offended, "what did you expect--a St.

Louis?"

"N-o," hesitated the lawyer, divided between a desire to gird at the doctor, or to soothe his civic pride. "But I'll confess I expected a town somewhat larger, for the port of entry of the territory of Montana."

"Thirty years from now Fort Benton will be a second St. Louis," affirmed the doctor, oracularly. "The river traffic will be enormous by that time."

The physician's faith in the ultimate settlement of the Northwest and Fort Benton's consequent growth was shared, Danvers knew, by many another enthusiast; but as he looked back, mentally, over the lonely, wind-swept miles through which the Missouri flowed, uninhabited save by a few adventurers, trappers and Indians, the prediction seemed preposterous.

"So the town looks small to you, eh?" asked the doctor, returning to Latimer's comment. "But let me tell you, Fort Benton does the business!

Our boats bring in the year's supply for the mining camps, for the Indian agencies, for the military posts and for the Canadian Mounted Police. No other town in the West has its future."

The three were silent for a time. The little town was very attractive, nestling in the bend of the Missouri and protected by the bluffs in their springtime tints.

Several stern-wheelers, many mackinaws, and smaller boats lay along the water front.

The _Fontenelle_, first to arrive, was discharging her cargo. Danvers, boy-like, took a certain pride in knowing that even the Canadians, through the establishment of the North West Mounted Police and their immediate needs, were adding to the prosperity of this Northwestern center. Much sectional talk among the pa.s.sengers had strengthened his opinion that Americans were unfair and unjust to their brothers of a common language, though when it came to business, he noticed that the loudest talkers were the most anxious to secure Canadian trade.

The longer Philip looked at Fort Benton the more he was attracted.

Decisions about places are as intuitive as convictions about people. One place is liked, another disliked, and no logical reason can be given for either. Fort Benton, that blue and golden day, touched his heart so deeply that the sentiment never left him. Others might see only a raw, rough frontier trading post; but for the trooper, the glamour of the West was mingled with the faint, curling smoke dissolving into the clear atmosphere. He had been right in his strong impulse to cross the seas! Never had he been more sure.

By this time the steamer had cautiously nosed its way to its moorings and tied up to a snubbing post. An officer from Fort Macleod came on board to look after his recruits, and in the bustle of landing Philip saw Scar Faced Charlie and little Winifred but a moment. Soon the doctor and Latimer disappeared around the end of a long warehouse on their way to the hotel, after a promise to look him up on the morrow.

The captain was ordering his men, and presently Burroughs sauntered near.

"Well, here we are! I wonder 'f I'll see Miss Thornhill again?" As Danvers made no reply. Burroughs smiled heavily. "I'll see yeh agin.

Likely I'll pull m' freight soon after you do and we'll meet at Macleod."

"G'bow thar! ye cussed, Texas horned toad! Haw, thar! ye bull-headed son of a gun, pull ahead! Whoa! Haw! Ye long-horned, mackerel-back cross between a shanghai rooster an' a mud-hen, I'll skin ye alive in about a minute!" The pop of a bull-whip followed like a pistol shot.