Chapter I

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A MAN OF TWO COUNTRIES

A MAN _of_ TWO

COUNTRIES

BY

ALICE HARRIMAN

Author of SONGS O' THE SOUND, CHAPERONING ADRIENNE

THROUGH THE YELLOWSTONE, SONGS O'

THE OLYMPICS, etc.

Chapter Headings by

C. M. DOWLING

1910

THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY

NEW YORK & SEATTLE

COPYRIGHT 1910, BY

THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY

All rights reserved

PRINTED BY

THE PREMIER PRESS

NEW YORK

U. S. A.

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 friendships and enmities.

And with the less attractive strands the shifting harness of place and

circumstance enmeshes a thread of Love's gold.

BOOK I. THE RIVER

BOOK II. THE PRAIRIE

BOOK III. THE STATE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK I

I. Twisting the Lion's Tail 15

II. The Girl on the Fontenelle 30

BOOK II

I. Under the Union Jack 47

II. Hate 58

III. The Hot Blood of Youth 72

IV. The Return to Fort Benton 88

BOOK III

I. Visitors from Helena 107

II. Charlie Blair's Sister 125

III. A Man of Two Countries 141

IV. The State Republican Convention 155

V. Despair 165

VI. Il Trovatore 180

VII. Debauching a Legislature 196

VIII. Danvers' Discouragement 211

IX. A Frontier Knock 219

X. Wheels Within Wheels 226

XI. The Chinese Legend 241

XII. Recognition 251

XIII. The Lobbyist 257

XIV. The Keystone 268

XV. An Unpremeditated Speech 281

XVI. The Election 291

[Illustration]

BOOK I

_THE RIVER_

_"I beheld the westward marches

Of the ... nations,

Restless, struggling, toiling, striving."_

--_Longfellow_

[Illustration]

Chapter I

Twisting the Lion's Tail

Philip Danvers, heading a small party of horsemen, 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

passengers, 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 passenger list a'ready, Captain?" demanded a

blustering, 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 hell yeh say!"

Philip Danvers noted the unfriendly eye, and realized that this burly

fellow dominated even the captain.

"Their passage 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 passengers growled at the slow progress

hitherto 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.

"Hello! '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 damned 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 friendship 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," asserted Winifred, as Robert Burroughs passed.

"You mustn't say that, Winnie," reproved Charlie.

"Burroughs"--addressing Philip--"Sweet Oil Bob, we call him, is goin' to

start a new tradin' post at Macleod. He's clerked at Fort Benton till he

knows more about the profits of an Injun tradin' post than any man on

the river! Yeh'll likely see quite a little o' him. Most of the Canadian

traders 'd rather he stayed this side o' the line."

"Surely there are other American traders in this Whoop Up Country, as

you call it."

"Not so many--no. But Sweet Oil Bob is shrewd, an' the Canadians are

afraid he'll get the biggest share o' the Injun trade. You know how it

is."

Before Danvers could answer, his attention was caught by:

"The ambition of my life is to sit on the supreme bench of some State,"

spoken by a fair-haired young man as he passed with a taller, older one.

"Montana will be a State, some day," the would-be judge went on, eagerly

boyish.

"Hello, Doc," called Charlie, as he sighted the elder pedestrian. "Stop

a minute."

Before the invitation was accepted the physician gave impetus to the

other's desire.

"Hope your hopes, Latimer. Honorable and honest endeavor will reach the

most exalted position." Then he put out his hand to the child, who

clasped it affectionately.

"Well, Charlie," he smiled genially at the English lad as well as on his

former river travelers. "How goes it?"

"All right," returned Charlie, amiably. "So Latimer wants to dabble in

territorial politics, eh?"

"I didn't say so," flushed the embryonic lawyer. "I said I'd like to be

a judge on the supreme bench, some day. I'm going to settle in Montana,

and----"

"What do you think about politics?" suddenly quizzed Charlie, turning to

Danvers.

"I'd not risk losing your friendship," smiled Philip, "by stating what

an Englishman's opinion of American politics are."

"Better not," laughed the doctor, with a keen glance of appraisal.

"I'll admit they're rotten," Latimer hastened to add. "But I'd love to

play the game. No political affiliations should bias my decision."

"Bet you'll be glad to get home, Doc." Charlie changed the subject, so

foreign to his out-of-door interests. "You can't keep the doctor away

from Fort Benton," he explained to the two strangers. "He thinks she's

got a big future, don't you, Doc?"

"To be sure! To be sure!" corroborated the physician, as his arm went

around the little girl. "Fort Benton will be a second St. Louis! Mark my

words, Latimer." He turned to his companion, whose charm of manner

appealed unconsciously to the reserved Danvers.

"I hope your predictions may prove correct, since I am to set up a law

office there," replied Latimer. "And you?" He turned to include Philip

Danvers in a smile which the lonely Englishman never forgot.

"He an' I 's for Fort Macleod," explained Scar Faced Charlie, before

Philip could speak. These ready frontiersmen had a way of taking the

words out of his mouth.

"He's for the Mounted Police, yeh know, an' I'm freightin' in the

supplies. An' what d'yeh think, Doc? Toe String Joe says he's goin' to

enlist when we get to Fort Benton. Burroughs won't mind havin' him in

the Force."

"Isn't it unusual for Canadian troopers to come through the United

States?" inquired Arthur Latimer.

This time it was the doctor who answered the question directed toward

the silent Danvers.

"The first companies marched overland from Winnipeg two years ago, when

the North West Mounted Police was organized, and a tough time they had.

They were six months making it, what with hostile Indians and one thing

and another, and at last they got lost in an awful snowstorm (winter set

in early that year), and they nearly died of cold and starvation--most

of their horses did. An Indian brought word to one of the trading posts.

Remember that rescue, Charlie?" He turned for corroboration to the

freighter, but continued, without waiting for an answer that was quite

unnecessary to prod the reminiscent doctor.

"Fort Macleod is only two hundred miles north of Fort Benton," he

concluded, "and I understand the recruits will hereafter be taken into

the Whoop Up Country by way of the Missouri."

The blue eyes of the lawyer instinctively sought the dark ones of the

young trooper in a bond of subtle feeling at this recital of pioneer

life. It was all in the future for them.

"We came from Ottawa by rail to Bismarck," explained Danvers at the

unspoken question, "and brought our horses."

"They are a civil force under military discipline," added the doctor to

Latimer's questioning eyes.

As they talked, the steamboat came to a series of rapids, and Danvers

and Latimer went to the prow to watch the warping of the boat over the

obstruction. Burroughs stood near, and took no pains to lower his voice

as he remarked to the mate: "Jes' watch my smoke. I'm goin' to twist the

lion's tail."

"Meanin' the feller with the black hair?" The mate looked critically at

Danvers. "Better leave him alone, Burroughs," he advised. "Yeh've been

achin' to git at him ever since yeh set eyes on him. What's eatin' yeh?"

"Yeh talk too much with yer mouth," flung back Burroughs, as he moved

toward the Englishman. "Ever been up the river before?" he demanded of

Danvers.

"No." Philip barely glanced away from the lusty roustabouts working the

donkey engines.

"Are yeh a 'non-com' or a commissioned officer?"

The young recruit turned stiffly, surprised at the persistence.

"Neither," he answered, laconically, returning to the survey of the

swearing, sweating crew. Several bystanders laughed, and the mate

remarked:

"You'll git nothin' outer that pilgrim that's enlightenin', Bob. He's

too clost mouthed."

"Some say 'neether' an' some say 'nayther,' but 'nyther' is right,"

sneered Burroughs, "fer the Prince o' Wales says 'nyther.'"

Danvers, disdaining to notice the cheap wit, watched the brilliant

sunshine struggling through the lessening rain as it danced from eddy to

sand-bar, from rapids to half-submerged snags. The boiling river

whitened as the steamboat labored to deeper water above the rapids. The

islands, flushed with the fresh growth of a Northern spring, and the

newly formed shore-line where the capricious Missouri had recently

undermined a stretch of bank, gave character to the scene, as did the

delicately virent leaves of swirling willow, quaking aspens and

cottonwoods loosened from their place on shore to float in midstream.

A party of yelling Crees attracted their attention, and the stranger's

indifference gave a combative twist to Burroughs' remark:

"Them's Canadian Injuns."

Something in his tone made the men draw nearer. Was it a sneer? A slur

on all things English? A challenge to resent the statement, and

resenting, to show one's mettle? Frontiersmen on the upper Missouri

fought at a word in the early seventies. No need for cause. Men had been

shot for less animus than Burroughs displayed.

"A fight?" asked Scar Faced Charlie, drawn from the cabin.

"No; a prayer-meeting," Toe String Joe gave facetious answer.

"Run back to our stateroom, Winnie," said Charlie, as he glanced at

Burroughs' face. "What's the matter?" he inquired as she obeyed.

"Search me." Joe still acted as fourth dimension. "Bob and Danvers seem

to hate each other on sight."

Burroughs moved nearer the quiet trooper.

"The Mounted Police think they're goin' to stop whiskey sellin' to the

Injuns," he began. "But they can't. I know----" A meaning wink at his

friends implied disloyalty even in the Force.

The baited youth faced the trader, his countenance darkening. But his

hand unclasped as he started for the cabin with Latimer. Why notice this

loud talk? Why debase himself by fighting this unknown bully? His

bearing voiced his thoughts. The expectant crowd looked noncommittally

at the tall smokestacks, at the snags. Burroughs laughed noisily.

"'The widdy at Windsor' 's got another pretty!" he taunted. Hate flared

suddenly from his deep-set eyes; he could not have analyzed its cause.

"Jes' cut loose from home an' mammy," he continued, intemperately.

"Perhaps he's the queen's latest favorite, boys. We all know what women

are!"

What was it? A crash of thunder? A living bolt of fire? Something threw

the intervening men violently to the deck. The stripling who had

accepted the traditional shilling brushed the crowd aside and knocked

down the slanderer of all women--and of his queen!

"Take that back!" Philip breathed, not shouted, as one less angry might

have done. "You will not? You shall!"

Burroughs sprang to his feet instantly and returned the blow valiantly.

He did not draw his Colt's as frontiersmen were prone to do, for he

thought that a knock-down fight would show that a man must not stand too

much on dignity on the upper Missouri. Besides, the lad was English,

therefore to be punished.

At once the trifling affair widened into a promiscuous scrimmage of

recruits against civilians. In the excitement Winifred, frightened at

the uproar, came searching for her brother, just as Danvers again

delivered a blow that sent Burroughs reeling against the deck railing.

It was not strong enough to withstand the collision and the aggressor in

the fight barely kept his balance as the wood broke. But Winifred,

pushed forward by the struggling men, clutched at the air and dropped

into the whirling yellow river far below.

"My God!" groaned Charlie, springing after her. But his leap was

preceded by that of Philip Danvers.

The alarm was given; the engines reversed. As the roustabouts jumped to

lower the boats the men pressed forward, but the mate beat them back

and got the crew to work.

Nowhere could the soft curls be seen. Charlie, nearly drawn into the

revolving paddles, was taken into the boat. Presently the watchers saw

Winifred's little red dress caught on an uprooted sapling. Tree and

child were in the center of the current. While so much debris stayed

near the shore or drifted on the shallow sand-bars, this one tree with

its human freight hurried on.

"Save her! Save her!" sobbed Scar Faced Charlie, kept by force from

jumping again into the stream. "_Let me go!_" he roared.

"No, Charlie," said the mate firmly. "We're goin' to pick up yer sister

an' Danvers. No need fer yeh to risk yer life again. That English lad is

goin' to turn the trick."

Philip swam on, strongly, while vociferous ejaculations reached him.

"That feller's got sand!" he heard Joe say, as he dexterously avoided a

whirlpool and dodged a snag.

"He's a fool!"

"He'll drown, an' the girl, too!"

"It's caught--he'll overtake her!"

A devilfish-like snag held tree and burden. With a burst of speed Philip

swam alongside. Winifred? Thank God! Still alive, although unconscious;

face white, eyes closed. As he grasped her, her eyes opened.

* * * * *

After the excitement, the shouts and the cursings, the crashing of wood

and the fighting, quiet reigned on the _Far West_.

Robert Burroughs, sitting in the long northern twilight, rubbed his sore

muscles while Scar Faced Charlie and the doctor paced the deck.

"Danvers did a big thing. He saved my sister's life. I'll never forget

it. If the time ever comes I'll do as much for him," declared Charlie.

"Perhaps you may," mused the doctor. "We can never tell what the future

holds. Perhaps you'll not save his life, but life isn't everything. He

may ask you to do something that you won't want to do."

The grating of the steamer on a sand-bar interrupted him.

Brought into high relief by the rising moon, the lead-man stationed

forward called:

"Four feet scant--four feet--by the lead five n' a half! No bottom!"

Then came:

"Three--t-h-r-e-e--f-e-e-t--scant!" Again the boat scraped the sand.

As the pilot shouted down the tube to the engineers to pile on more

steam Charlie reverted to the rescue.

"Danvers looked pretty well used up when he was brought aboard. But

darned if he yipped. He was all for lookin' after Winnie."

"I like the lad," nodded the doctor approvingly. "He has the gift of

silence. Shakespeare says: 'Give thy thoughts no tongue.'"

In their next turn they saw Burroughs.

"It'll never do for you to locate at Macleod, Bob, 'f you're goin' to

aggravate every recruit you don't happen to like," suggested Charlie,

with the privilege of friendship.

"I was a fool!" Burroughs confessed. "But somehow that youngster----"

"You an' he'll always be like two bull buffalo in a herd," said Charlie,

wisely.

"I'll do him yet," snarled Burroughs, as he rose to go to the cabin.

[Illustration]

Chapter II

The Girl on the _Fontenelle_

The passengers on the _Far West_ rose early. Danvers stood watching the

slow sun uplift from the gently undulating prairie. He threw back his

head, his lungs expanded as though he could not get enough of the air.

He did not know why, but he suddenly felt himself a part of the

country--felt that this great, open country was his. The banks of the

Missouri were not high and he had an unobstructed view of the vast,

grassy sea rolling uncounted miles away to where the sky came down to

the edge of the world.

The song of the meadow lark, sweet and incessant as it balanced on a

rosin-weed, of the lark bunting and lark finch, poured forth

melodiously; twittering blue-birds looked into the air and back to

their perch atop the dead cottonwood as they gathered luckless insects;

the brown thrush, which sings the night through in the bright starlight,

rivaled the robin and grosbeak as Philip gazed over the blue-skyed,

green-grassed land. The blue-green of the ocean had not so fascinated as

the mysticism of this broad view. He was glad to be alive, and anxious

to be in the riot of life on the plains, where trappers, traders and

soldiers moved in the strenuous game of making a new world.

His abounding vitality had recouped itself after the strain of yesterday

and he forgot its unpleasantness in the glorious morning; yet at the

sight of Burroughs coming from his cabin, the sunlight dulled and

involuntarily he felt himself grow tense.

"I didn't mean a damn thing," began Burroughs awkwardly.

"That's all right," broke in Philip, as uncomfortable as the other.

Just then the doctor, with Joe and Charlie, came on the upper deck.

"What 'd I tell you, Charlie?" triumphantly asked the physician, as he

saw the trader and trooper shaking hands.

"What 'd you tell us?" repeated the man with the scarred face, in doubt,

as Burroughs moved away and Danvers turned toward the prow of the boat

staring, with eyes that saw not, into the western unknown.

"Didn't I tell you that Bob would do the right thing?" asked the

charitable surgeon impatiently, unconscious that he had voiced no such

sentiment.

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," assented 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 damned 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 passengers 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

glass 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 shore 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 passengers 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 passengers 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.

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 shifting and reforming into kaleidoscopic

groups and jovial comradeship.

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 passed 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 passed 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.

[Illustration]

BOOK II

_THE PRAIRIE_

_"On Darden plain

The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch

Their brave pavilions."

--Troilus and Cressida_

[Illustration]

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 companionship. 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 assisted 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 space 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 comradeship. How could he

overcome his natural reserve, make friends, yet not sacrifice his

individuality and family traditions? He recalled his father's haughty:

"Associate 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 companionship 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 shining 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!"

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 passed 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 shipping 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 shipment to Fort

Benton.

The babel of tongues grew louder. Burroughs' quick temper suffered from

McDevitt's repeated assertion 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' hell 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.

[Illustration]

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

passed to the rear and tapped on the small pane of glass 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.

"A party went out from the fort."

"M-m-m! Who was at the fort before you turned in?"

"Nobody."

"Who was ordered out?"

Joe told him. "Danvers was one," he concluded.

"Always that black-haired Englishman! I hate him!"

"What yeh goin' to do? Ain't them goods comin' this week? Somebody's

blabbed. Me-Casto's been watchin' yeh mighty clost, lately. Perhaps it

was him."

"Perhaps," concurred the trader, looking at the disloyal trooper

thoughtfully. "We kin only hope fer the best. Wild Cat Bill is bringin'

it in, an' Scar Faced Charlie is drivin'. 'F they git a chance to

_cache_ the stuff they will. Maybe," he concluded hopefully, "the

detachment won't run across 'em, an' they'll fool the Police, with their

little pill boxes stuck on three hairs."

Meantime the mounted detail, with Me-Casto as scout, galloped past the

lodge fires of the outlying Indians and pressed their way through a

falling sleet with not a sound but the muffled thud of the horses' hoofs

and the moan of the wind.

The stars dimmed; the east lightened. In the early morning the troopers

came to a small trading-post, where they saw a group of men awaiting

their arrival.

"I thought it was you, Danvers, the minute I piped yeh off!" Wild Cat

Bill stepped forward as he spoke, and shook hands with the young

trooper as cordially as if they were old friends. Bill breathed as

though he had been running, but went on immediately:

"We've come up here to see what the chances were fer wolfin' this

winter. Here's Charlie, yeh see. What yeh out fer? Horse thieves?"

Philip did not answer, as the officer in charge, singularly lacking in

perspicacity, took it upon himself.

"We are looking for smugglers," he frowned. "You haven't seen any loaded

outfits headed this way from Fort Benton, have you?"

"Nope!" Bill promptly answered. "We've been here two days, and nobody

passed here--has they, Charlie?" The freighter confirmed Bill's

assertion and the troopers were then ordered to stable their horses for

an hour.

"How is your sister, Charlie?" Danvers asked at his earliest

opportunity. He was sorry to see the freighter, feeling something was

amiss.

"She's in the East, at boarding-school," answered Charlie. "I couldn't

do by her as I should," he went on. "Fort Benton's no place to bring up

Winnie."

"Remember me to her when you write," said Danvers, walking his horse

away as Charlie passed inside the trading-post.

"What are yeh thinkin'?" whispered one of the detail in the dark of the

stables as the horses were being fed.

"Not much of anything," Danvers whispered back.

"Yes, yeh are. Yeh know they's _cached_ whiskey somewhere around."

Coming from the stables, Danvers passed the conspicuously empty wagons

belonging to the Americans. He noticed that the pile of refuse near by

was not covered with snow, although the stables had not been cleaned.

Walking nearer, he detected a strong odor of whiskey rising from the

wagon boxes. He remembered the sweat on the men's foreheads. Getting a

stable fork he struck sharply into the compost. Something clinked. A

quick throwing of the litter uncovered a case, such as was commonly used

to convey liquor.

As it was his duty, Danvers walked to the captain and saluted.

"I've found a _cache_ of whiskey, sir," he answered, respectfully.

The captain investigated. Then he opened the door of the shack and

surprised the Americans eating breakfast.

When placed under arrest, they seemed stunned, submitting without demur.

"I bet Danvers found that _cache_!" muttered Bill. "He's too foxy fer

me!"

On the return trip to Fort Macleod, Me-Casto began to fear that the men

would attempt to prove that the whiskey was not Burroughs'. He knew what

he had heard in the lodges; but what would his word be, as against these

defiant men? He pondered for many miles, then thought of another way to

bring disgrace on Burroughs. He would yet have Pine Coulee, himself!

Riding close to the wagon where the morose Charlie sat, Me-Casto

craftily engaged in conversation.

"_Kitzi-nan-nappi-ekki?_" (your whiskey?) he asked. The Blackfeet would

make no effort to learn English, although they understood a little; but

most white men had a fair knowledge of the Indian dialects.

"No," answered Charlie.

"_Nee-a-poos?_" (Burroughs?)

"No."

"Whose?" was the next question in Blackfoot.

"I don't know."

"You'll get six months in the guard-room if they get you."

"I s'pose so," was the reluctant admission. The prospect was not

pleasing.

"Then Burroughs have Pine Coulee all time!"

"What'd you mean?" thundered Charlie, effectually interested.

"Burroughs give Pine Coulee a new dress--new beads--new blanket," was

the candid reply.

The teamster was stricken dumb. He made no comment on the gossip, but

when it came his turn to be examined before Colonel Macleod, he swore

that Burroughs was the owner of the seized liquor and that he had been

employed to drive these men North. In every way he could, he offset the

perjured testimony of Bill, who posed as the victim of circumstantial

evidence.

The commandant-magistrate was puzzled. Me-Casto had testified that he

had heard Burroughs in one of the lodges, arranging for the _caching_ of

expected whiskey, in one of the cut banks of the river. The teamster

corroborated the Indian. Wild Cat Bill and Burroughs swore that neither

owned the confiscated liquor. Colonel Macleod knew nothing of Charlie or

Bill; but he considered the standing of Burroughs, also the

unreliability of most Indians' testimony, and finally acquitted

Burroughs unconditionally, while declaring Bill and Charlie guilty of

smuggling, and he sentenced them accordingly. Burroughs promptly

furnished the money for the payment of Bill's fine, and Latimer,

believing Charlie's tale, loaned him money to escape the guard-room.

* * * * *

Great was the rejoicing in Burroughs' post that night. Long after

midnight Bill waited for a moment with his chief.

"I done the best I could, Bob," he said dejectedly, when they were at

last alone. "'F Phil Danvers hadn't been along I'd 'a' made it."

"I'll get even with him," growled Burroughs.

"The Police mos' caught us red-handed," explained Bill. "We hadn't

more'n got the pitchforks back in the stable when they rode up."

"Say no more about it, Bill," suggested Bob. The smuggler looked

comforted.

"Danvers is all right," mused Bill, while his friend prepared a drink.

"Is that so?" queried Bob with unpleasant emphasis.

"You're as cocky as a rooster," expostulated the other. "Phil Danvers

has swore to do his duty--an' he does it. The most of us is on the make

up here, an' the Police've got their traitors, as you know. Danvers is

sort of unusual, that's all."

"He ain't my style!" was the retort.

"No," was the dry comment, "I shouldn't presume he was." But the sarcasm

was lost on his hearer.

"What was eatin' Scar Faced Charlie, anyway?"

"He's squiffy." Bill had heard the conversation between Me-Casto and

Charlie on the trail, but was in no mind to retail it.

"I'm goin' out," said Burroughs, presently, and at this broad hint Bill

rose.

"I'm in yer debt," he began awkwardly.

"That's all right." The trader knew and Bill knew that the paid fine was

another cord to bind him. "An' now we'll make a pile o' money 'f we're

careful. Joe's inside the fort an' you an' me are outside, an' the

Injuns are always dry--see? This deal's goin' to be pretty hard on me,

what with the government confiscatin' all them nine hundred gallons of

whiskey; but we've got more comin', an' we'll have to mix it a little

thinner, that's all."

Burroughs went toward the Indian lodges and soon discovered Charlie also

sneaking thither.

No superfluous words were spoken. "What'd yeh do it fer?" The angry

trader whirled, the teamster facing him.

"You let Pine Coulee alone!" mumbled Charlie, far gone in liquor.

"That's it, eh?" commented the enlightened Burroughs, turning away

contemptuously. "Like hell I will!"

Not long after Arthur Latimer answered a recent letter from the doctor

in Fort Benton. He gave a vivid account of recent events and of a dinner

that had been given at the military post on Christmas day to which he

had been invited.

_"After the dinner," he continued, "the boys sang for an hour or

more. They have good voices, and it was worth a long journey to

hear them sing 'The Wearing of the Green.'_

_"Colonel Macleod seemed to enjoy the music immensely, and (I don't

see how he happened to think of it) he called Danvers up and asked

him if he knew anything from 'Il Trovatore.' Phil saluted and said

that he had heard it in London. Thereupon the colonel asked him if

he could sing any of the airs. Phil hesitated, but the commanding

officer's request is tantamount to a command, and after a moment he

began the 'Miserere.' The men were still as death. Probably they

had never heard it before. You, of course, remember that superb

tenor solo--the haunting misery, the despair! And what do you

think? When he got to the duet I took Leonora's part. Phil gave a

little start, but kept on singing, and we carried the duet through.

My! but the men nearly tore us to shreds. O'Dwyer fairly lifted

Phil off his feet, at this triumph of his hero, for he has taken a

great liking to our silent Englishman. The colonel thanked us with

delightful appreciation and soon after went out--more quiet than

ever. I reckon he was homesick. We all were--a bit. Sweethearts

and wives seemed very far away that night._

_"You speak of Scar Faced Charlie's avowed intention of abandoning

his freighting. He'll probably never come up here again. He

recently sent me some cash I'd loaned him, and he intimated as

much. Before he left here he returned his squaw, Pine Coulee, to

her father; then Burroughs bought her for a bunch of ponies._

_"Me-Casto couldn't compete--poor devil. He, like all Indians, had

gambled away his small stock of ponies early in the fall--as

Burroughs well knew."_

"Come on, Arthur," called Danvers, cheerily, as he stuck his head into

the room. "There's a dance on at Bob's trading-post."

"All right." Latimer hurriedly put away his writing and soon they ran

along the trail to the rendezvous.

"Look, there is Me-Casto!" exclaimed Philip.

"Where?"

"Skulking in the shadows back of Bob's place."

"Bob better look out," said Arthur, as they pushed open the store door.

"Me-Casto is not here for any good."

The candle-lighted room was well filled with traders, troopers, trappers

and squaws. No buck ever participated in a white man's dance, but

several stood by the door and looked on. Every one was in high spirits,

and when the fiddler, a French 'breed, struck up, stamping his

moccasined feet to keep time, each man secured a squaw and took his

place. A brazen-lunged 'breed shouted, "Alleman' lef'! Swing yer

partners!" and the couples swung giddily around.

Danvers joined in with right good-will. Occasionally he danced; more

often he sat on the long trade counter and kept time to the emphatic

music by beating his spurs heavily against the boards behind his feet.

Latimer and O'Dwyer danced joyously; but Burroughs, apparently uneasy,

as the evening wore on, kept a watchful eye on the outer door. Philip

noticed, too, that Pine Coulee was less phlegmatic than usual, although

she danced faithfully at the command of her lord and master.

Presently Me-Casto came in and stood by the door. With blanket muffling

the lower part of his face, he looked piercingly at Pine Coulee--at

Robert Burroughs. The trader caught Me-Casto's eye, and, ostentatiously

clasping Pine Coulee's hand as he swung her in the dance, he smiled full

in the Blackfoot's face, purposely flaunting his ownership of the squaw.

Me-Casto turned and left the room.

"'On wid the dance, let j'y be unconfined!'" yelled O'Dwyer, as he

combined an Irish jig and a Red River reel. He had not noticed Me-Casto,

but Latimer and Danvers exchanged glances. Just then Pine Coulee looked

wistfully toward the opening door. Burroughs, ever watchful, caught a

glimpse of Me-Casto as his lips gave an almost imperceptible signal to

Pine Coulee. The trader's anger was quick; his discretion slight. He

struck the girl flat on the cheek.

"Take that!" he said savagely. "I'll teach yeh to hanker after that

lousy buck!"

The words and the blow were simultaneous. So was the leap of the

indignant Danvers.

"You coward!" he cried, "to strike a woman!" He took the trader by the

nape of the neck and shook him soundly.

Before Burroughs could close with the trooper there came three rifle

shots. Each time a singing bullet whizzed by a dodging form. Only one of

the shots took effect. Pine Coulee sank to the floor, blood flowing from

her bosom.

Screams, oaths and shouts mingled as Danvers raised the squaw. Latimer

assisted him in placing her on a counter, while Burroughs, certain of

the would-be murderer, ran outside for the assailant, the crowd

following. A head pushed past the half-opened side door.

"Didn't I kill Burroughs?" The question was in Blackfoot.

"You shot Pine Coulee!" replied Danvers, sternly. In an instant renewed

shouting indicated that the men had tracked the Indian. A moment later

the sound of fleeing hoofs told that Me-Casto had made a get-away. The

trot of other horses followed, but soon the eternal silence of the

prairie reigned alone.

By the time Burroughs returned to the store Pine Coulee had revived.

As the trader was dragging the squaw to his near-by house, he paused on

the threshold.

"Phil Danvers," he said, moistening his dry lips as his rage increased,

"as true as they's a God above I'll pay yeh back for interferin'

to-night. I've hated yeh from the first time I set eyes on yeh! 'F I

live I'll make yeh feel what hate'll do! Yeh're too good fer the Whoop

Up Country, an' I've got a long score to settle with yeh! 'F ever white

women come to this country an' yeh git a sweetheart I'll do my best to

separate yeh! 'F yeh've got a sister I'll have her! I'll--I'll--God! But

I hate yeh!"

[Illustration]

Chapter III.

The Hot Blood of Youth

The spring warmed into summer, the summer melted into autumn. Autumn, in

turn, chilled into the white world of winter. All thoughts of the little

girl on the _Far West_ had slipped from the mind of Danvers, and even

the memory of Miss Thornhill became faint--obliterated by the strenuous

life of the service. Promotion came in his third year of service as a

reward for intelligence and efficiency. Danvers was offered and accepted

a commission. He felt that life was good. Fears and homesickness had

long since disappeared; the longings for other and more congenial,

refined and feminine associates came but seldom; still, the desire for

the understanding of one alone, for a loved wife and a son to bear his

name was not dead--it was simply dormant in that womanless land.

"The doctor will be here next week," announced Arthur Latimer, who had

been bookkeeper in one of the trading-posts ever since he had come to

Macleod, soon after Danvers was made a second lieutenant. "Colonel

Macleod, I hear, has invited quite a party to visit him from Fort

Benton."

"Yes. I heard from the doctor, too." Philip smiled at thought of his

friend's surprise at his new rank.

It was not long before the visitors arrived, and, greatly to Danvers'

surprise, Miss Thornhill, accompanied by her father, the major, was

among them.

The first white woman that he had seen for three years! He had never

before realized how dainty a lady is in comparison with her sisters of

the lodges. They may be kin in the world relationship, but, oh! the

difference one from the other. The squaws, standing stolidly by, were

intolerable. As Eva walked consciously past with Colonel Macleod,

attended by the staff officers, she gave no sign of recognition other

than a heightened color and lowered eye-lashes; but Philip felt that she

recognized him. Before the girl reached the barracks Mr. Burroughs

entered the stockade. With the assurance of a favored acquaintance, he

advanced and pressed the hand of Miss Thornhill.

Danvers turned away. So new a mood assailed him that he went outside the

stockade and prowled along the outer wall, not waiting to do more than

greet the doctor. How he longed for a touch of that dainty hand, for a

word from Eva--from _any_ young woman of his own race! All the manhood,

all the heart-hunger of the isolated years, surged within him. He smiled

rather piteously. He had not realized that he was starving for the sight

of fair skin, sunny hair and slender hands; for a bonny white

face--white--white! That was it! A white face, a womanly face! He hardly

noticed the muttered "How" of Pine Coulee as she passed, her young babe

slung over her back. But he returned her salutation, and after they

passed each other he recalled a look on her usually expressionless face

that he had never seen there before.

"Here, Phil! Wait for us!" Latimer was calling, and Danvers soon forgot

his perturbation in the pleasure of the doctor's presence and

congratulations, as he came up with Arthur.

"Got so you can talk, eh?" asked the doctor, noting how the young men

vied in their efforts to entertain him. "I told the colonel that I was

coming up here to see you, fully as much as him--good friends as we are.

You are good to look at, both of you."

"Arthur always could talk," smiled Danvers, "and I can--with my

friends."

"How is Burroughs getting along?" asked the doctor, as the trader passed

them, too absorbed, apparently, in the recollection of his meeting with

Miss Thornhill to note either them or Pine Coulee, who followed him.

"Remarkably well, from a financial standpoint. His living with a squaw

makes him popular with the Indians, and the colonel swears by

him--thinks he's perfect."

"And the trade in whiskey?"

Latimer shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"That's Bob's squaw," said Arthur, after an awkward pause. "She's as

proud as a peacock of that papoose. She rather lords it over her former

associates of the lodges."

The doctor whistled. He knew Pine Coulee's story, but had not heard of

the child. "Bob will want to marry some day," was his sole comment. "Has

Me-Casto ever been caught?"

"No. When he does turn up, Robert Burroughs may look out for trouble."

"Why did Toe String Joe leave the Force?" asked the doctor presently.

"He has been in Fort Benton for some little time."

"Drummed out of the service. But he wouldn't tell who supplied him with

the whiskey. What is he doing now?"

"Joe is mining. He declares he will be a millionaire."

"He'll be a millionaire when Danvers turns American and runs for

office," scoffed Latimer, remembering Joe's shiftless disposition and

making the most improbable comparison that he could think of.

"He will never be one, then," said Philip, quietly. "I cannot think of

anything that would make me break my allegiance to England. I am going

to stay in the service--I like it! And as for American politics!... You

know what I think of them." He smiled affectionately to atone for the

words.

The glimpses that the troopers and younger officers caught of Eva

Thornhill in the following week were few. Nevertheless a gust of

love-madness swept through the ranks, from the officer commanding to the

newest recruit. Nor were the townsmen behind in their attempts to win a

part of the girl's time and thoughts--if not herself. Burroughs easily

led in favor, and Lieutenant Danvers effaced himself. So rigidly did he

do so that it was not long before Miss Thornhill found the flavor of rue

in her Canadian visit. The smart lieutenant had made no advances, had

sought no introduction. Eva demanded the homage of all, accustomed as

she was to the frontier life where women were too rare to be neglected.

No chaperon was thought of in the freedom of the frontier, and, indeed,

none was needed among the innately chivalrous Westerners. This little

world of Macleod revolved around her--all but the silent, unobtrusive

Danvers, whose acquaintance seemed the more desirable in direct ratio to

his aloofness. Eva resolved to win him, and Arthur Latimer was artfully

sounded for the cause of his friend's indifference. The Southerner,

already playing at love with the fair-haired belle, and at no pains to

conceal it, readily undertook to find out.

"Why don't you meet Miss Thornhill?" he asked.

"I am very busy these days," interrupted the lieutenant, giving his

excuse hastily. Not even to his friend could he disclose how he was

drawn toward the only white representative of her sex at Macleod.

"But she wants to know you. She wants to meet you," insisted the loyal

Arthur, who had sung Danvers' praises industriously and unselfishly.

"Why, Arthur!" Philip cried, gaily, to cover the tremor in his voice

that would not be subdued when he learned that this haughty maid had

thought of him. "If you are as much in love with Miss Thornhill as you

pretend to be, you want to speak for yourself. But she evidently

prefers Bob Burroughs, and I, for one, think I'll keep out of

temptation." He slapped the ardent Southerner affectionately on the

back. "No chance for either of us, old man! Don't talk of me to her! She

will think us asses--amiable idiots!"

"I know there's no chance for me," replied Latimer, aggrieved. "What

have I to offer a wife--I'm poor as the proverbial church mouse."

"Anyway, leave me out of your conversations."

"I'll see that you do not meet her!" returned the Missourian, in mock

alarm. Then they laughed light-heartedly. "I know whom she'd choose--if

she had the opportunity. Burroughs wouldn't stand a show, nor I either."

"There she is now." Danvers nodded toward the ford, where he had seen,

for several moments, the trader and Eva riding easily.

"Bob's got his nerve! How about Pine Coulee and the child?" exploded

Latimer.

"S-sh!" warned Philip, seeing a movement of the bullberry bushes near

them.

As the young men looked toward the riders, whose mounts were close

together and walking slowly, a dark face, with passionate eyes gleaming,

pushed cautiously out from the sheltering branches, and Pine Coulee also

watched the unconscious maid and the trader.

* * * * *

When Colonel Macleod, wishing to impress his American visitors, ordered

the troops under his command to go through their cavalry exercises, Miss

Thornhill sat on a glossy mare beside him, while troopers passed at a

walk or trot, and wondered why she had found it so difficult to meet

Lieutenant Danvers. As the lines of superb and faultlessly groomed men

and horses swept past on the last mad gallop she forgot her brooding and

clapped her hands enthusiastically.

"Oh, Colonel Macleod! That was splendid! Make them go on, and on!" she

cried.

"Why, of course, if you wish," assented the gallant Macleod, forgetting

that the rise of ground directly in front of him had the river on its

farther slope.

"Phat's the colonel thinkin' of?" growled O'Dwyer, as no halt sounded.

"He's not thinkin' at all!" responded the man next in alignment, sourly.

"A man can't think when a slip of a girl's near by."

"He's forgot the river!" groaned the fleshy Irishman, dreading the

certain plunge.

Into the stream they dashed, many of the men over their heads, for there

was no turning back.

As the horses balked, Lieutenant Danvers' stallion threshed viciously,

hitting O'Dwyer, and then ceased to swim.

O'Dwyer groaned, "Me a-r-rm!"

It was over in an instant. Those on shore assisted Danvers and the

Irishman to land. O'Dwyer was left in Philip's care, while the rest of

the men rode back, as the review must not be interrupted.

Eva saw the break in the ranks.

"Lieutenant Danvers has dropped out," she exclaimed, and straightway bit

her lip.

"Philip?" hastily asked the Fort Benton doctor, on a horse near by.

"Then there has been an accident!"

The sergeant-major rode up to report, but the impulsive Eva did not wait

for details. She touched her mare and was after the doctor.

"I'm so sorry!" cried the girl, as she met Danvers and O'Dwyer

returning. "It's all my fault that you are wet--and hurt! Which one is

hurt?" She turned provocative eyes to the dripping lieutenant.

"O'Dwyer has a sprained elbow," answered Philip, his heart dancing at

her solicitude. "It was through my carelessness."

"Don't ye be belavin' a wor-rd he says, miss!" burst out O'Dwyer. "That

is (beggin' yer pardon fer spakin' to the loikes of yez, an' me a

private!), don't ye belave 'tis his fault. He kep' me from drownin',

that's what he did!"

O'Dwyer had noted his idol's preoccupation since Miss Thornhill's

advent, the self-imposed aloofness, and had drawn his own shrewd

conclusions. He determined, here and now, to do Danvers a good turn,

despite the frown on the doctor's face and Philip's frantic signaling.

"Lieutenant Danvers is the finest feller God ever made!" he blurted,

regardless.

"Oh, keep still! _Keep still!_" cried the exasperated Englishman. This

misplaced loquacity!

Eva reached out suddenly, frankly.

"I think it's time we knew each other," she said, sweetly, and their

hands met.

That touch! Never had the unsophisticated youth felt such a touch! A

thrill of exquisite life went from her hand to his; from his hand to his

feet and the vibrations went tingling back to the girl. For the first

time Philip looked full into the blue eyes of Eva Thornhill.

"You're a fool, O'Dwyer!" Danvers heard the doctor remark, as they

proceeded toward the fort. The humbled trooper, hitching his arm in the

improvised sling which Philip had made, groaned doleful assent. Too late

he remembered the barrack-room decision that Miss Thornhill was after

every scalp in the Whoop Up Country.

And Eva Thornhill? Her opportunity had come, and she had taken it as a

gift from the gods. Suddenly she knew that Philip was merged in her

personality, and she reveled in the bloom of quickly grown, fully

developed passion. By the time the lieutenant assisted her from her

mare at the colonel's headquarters she was ready to think that there was

nothing to keep them apart. So quickly, hotly, does young blood run!

Her answer to the question that was ready to slip from his tongue--what

would it be? As Danvers lifted the flushing girl from her mount, her

eyes gave promise beneath their long-lashed veiling that the answer

would not be "no."

It was not many days before Major Thornhill took his daughter to task

for her neglect of Mr. Burroughs.

"Don't you let go of Burroughs," he counseled, with brutal sordidness.

"These young lawyers and lieutenants haven't a cent, so far as I can

find out. Burroughs has money and will have more. Remember that an army

officer never has anything to leave to his mourners."

Eva shrugged her shoulders; but her training showed her the wisdom of

her father's advice, and she bestowed more favor on the trader than he

had received for several days. However, she decided that one more ride

with the lieutenant she must have, and so impetuous was Philip that she

allowed him to say more than she intended he should. His wooing was

eager, headlong.

As they drew near the town on their return from their long ride, the

girl saw a squaw peering from the bushes beside the trail.

"Who is that squaw?" she asked, petulantly. "It seems to me that I never

go out but she is near me!"

"Oh--er----" he stammered, losing, for a moment, his self-possession as

he recognized Burroughs' property. He knew that the trader had pledged

his intimates to secrecy as to his relations with Pine Coulee while Miss

Thornhill was a visitor at Macleod, and he, while not pledged, would be

the last one to bring her in any way to Eva's notice. "Oh," he began

again, "she's a Blackfoot."

"That is evasion, pure and simple!" retorted his companion. "She wants

either to speak to me--or to kill me, I've not decided which. Wait here!

I am going to speak to her!"

"You are probably the first white woman she ever saw," Philip tried

vainly to make a satisfactory explanation; but, to his consternation,

Eva was gone.

Pine Coulee stood motionless as the fair-haired girl drew rein beside

her. Never had she shown her Indian blood more clearly than in the

stolid awaiting of her rival. Danvers drew nearer, fearing results.

"Do you speak English?" Pine Coulee was asked. "I think that you want to

speak to me. What is it? What can I do for you?" The look of dejection

on the dark face touched even Miss Thornhill.

Silence.

"What a big baby!" was Eva's next effort to gain good-will.

She was sure that the squaw could, at least, understand English; and the

gleam of motherhood, kindling at her praise, confirmed her belief.

Silence.

"What is the baby's name?"

Silence prolonged. Eva turned away, impatient that her advances should

be met so churlishly. Then, swift, malignant, Pine Coulee spoke:

"Him name Robert Burroughs! _Robert Burroughs!_" The words came with

startling distinctness.

Eva's surprise was great. She shuddered uncontrollably.

Pine Coulee understood the incredulity in the girl's eyes, and rushed

on, bitterly, in broken English:

"Yes. Robert Burroughs! Ask him!" pointing to Danvers with her lips, as

Indians will. "Burroughs mine! You not have him! You take this man! You

have everything--Pine Coulee have nothing but Bob and his baby! You

sha'n't have him! No! No!" The squaw, crazed with jealousy, started

towards Burroughs' house, but turned back with real dignity. "I hate

you! Why you come to steal my man?"

Then she abruptly took her bitter way along the trail till--Burroughs

blocked her. He gave her one look and rode forward.

"Your father sent me to look for you, Miss Thornhill," he began, as he

drew rein. He resolved to carry the matter off boldly, if Eva referred

to the Indian woman. "If you like, we will ride back together," he

added, nodding to Danvers.

"No, no, no!" cried Eva, hysterically. "I'm afraid of--of that--squaw!"

She pointed to Pine Coulee, who had followed Burroughs like a blighting

shadow.

"Git out of here!" Burroughs emphasized his command to the squaw with a

vicious kick. Not realizing how much the words would reveal, he added:

"I tol' yeh ter stay in the house!"

"I'll care for Miss Thornhill, Burroughs," interrupted Danvers. "Let us

pass, please! Take Pine Coulee back and leave decent white women to

others."

"To you?" sneered the trader, with suddenly loosened rage at maid and

man.

"Yes, to me!" proudly answered Philip, drawing closer to Eva's mount.

The girl was scarlet with rage.

"Oh, it's that way, is it?" snarled Bob. "You told Miss

Thornhill--that's plain to be seen!"

"He did not tell!" Eva slipped from her lover's protection and reined

her horse toward Burroughs. "Lieutenant Danvers tried to shield you.

She--she----" Eva looked at Pine Coulee, nursing her bruised forehead

(for Burroughs had kicked to hurt) and changed her words. "The

lieutenant never--he never intimated--such--a--horrid--thing. Of course

you will understand that I no longer care for your acquaintance!" The

reaction came and she begged: "Oh, Lieutenant Danvers, take me to

father!"

"Oh, you don't, eh?" sneered the trader. "There are many years ahead of

us both, and the time may come when you will want my help! And you,"

turning to Danvers, "I'll get even with you! If I can't win Eva

Thornhill, you never shall, mark my words! I'll----"

"You dare to threaten--us? Get out of our way!"

With a touch Danvers quickly started both his horse and Miss

Thornhill's. After a brief interval he slowed the pace.

"And now, darling, you must let me care for you always," urged Philip,

after he had restored Eva to some semblance of calm. "Let me speak to

your father to-night!" He talked on, encouraged by the girl's silent

yielding and the long kiss he laid on her willing lips. She was told of

his prospects, both in the army and in England, where his father and

sister lived. He told her of his lovely American mother, who had died so

young. He had enlisted, he said, for sheer love of a military life.

"Father wanted to buy a commission for me, but I knew I could get

one--without money!" was the modest close.

The afternoon together ended by Philip's putting his mother's engagement

ring on Eva's hand for their plighted troth. She looked at it a moment.

"I cannot wear this now," she said. "If we are engaged, I want it to be

kept secret until next spring. Don't you see, dear," she rubbed her face

caressingly on Philip's impatient hand, "that it will be better so?

Father will be furious when he knows that I've given Mr. Burroughs his

conge, and you'll come into your fortune when you are twenty-one next

June. Father'll never consent until then. He'll make me miserable all

winter!"

[Illustration]

Chapter IV

The Return to Fort Benton

That autumn visit of Eva Thornhill glowed in Danvers' heart like the

riotous colors in the gray landscape that precedes the frost of winter;

for winter was coming, her visit was over, and Eva and her father were

to leave for Fort Benton on the morrow. Danvers inwardly chafed under

the secrecy imposed upon their engagement, and yet it would have been

hard for him to have spoken of his love for Eva, even to the sympathetic

Latimer.

But he longed to see more of her, to drink his fill of her beauty and

fix her image in his memory that he might not famish in his loneliness

during the dreary winter months when they should be separated.

Though it was hard to evade her father, Eva Thornhill granted her lover

a last interview. His reserve, now softened by his love, fascinated the

girl, and the element of secrecy lent a romantic touch that did not

lessen her enjoyment of the situation. Yet it was a relief to return to

Fort Benton, where she could think it all over and avoid her father's

anger at a possible discovery.

"You will write to me?" said Danvers eagerly, as he held her hands, in

parting. "There are few mails in the winter, but some one will be coming

up." He looked imploringly into her eyes, as she hesitated.

"Of course I'll answer your letters--Philip," she spoke the name

deliberately, as though enjoying her right to the familiarity of its

use. "And when shall I hear from _you_?"

"_Always_; whenever you will close your eyes and listen! It may be weeks

before a freighter makes the trip; but without a written message you

will know that I am thinking of you, loving you! Remember it, Eva!"

His arm drew her close, and the girl caught his ardor as she returned

his good-bye kiss.

"I will, dear; oh, I will!" She clung to him and for a moment caught the

glory of his vision. Real tears dimmed her eyes as her lover tenderly

released her, and the man was satisfied.

That night Latimer had a long talk with his friend.

"You see, old man, I may as well go now, when the doctor and the

Thornhills are returning to Fort Benton. It may be weeks before I have

another chance."

Latimer, too! The thought sent a chill to the heart of the lieutenant,

now doubly sensitive to the love of this only friend! He had long known

that Latimer would return to his law practice in Fort Benton, but the

time had never been set for his going.

"The years of outdoor life," continued Latimer, "have made a new man of

me!" patting his chest, not yet so broad as Danvers'. "And if I am ever

to go back to the law I must get about it before I forget all I ever

knew." He gave his arguments with a half apology as if to soften the

sharpness of his decision, which to his loyal heart seemed like a

desertion of his friend.

Danvers was silent. He saw, more clearly than his companion, that the

doctor's visit, the presence of Major Thornhill and his daughter, and

the association with those of his own class, had roused in the

Southerner a longing for the old life of civic usefulness, had drawn him

back to his office, to his books and civilized associations.

"And if I get away to-morrow," went on Latimer, "I must pack up my few

belongings in the morning, and shall not have time for much of a

good-bye--you will understand, Phil?"

"Yes, indeed!" said Danvers, realizing that he had been too long silent.

"Write to me when you can, Arthur. You know what the winters are up in

this country."

They smoked in silence for an hour or more--that strange communion that

men find gives greater sympathy than any speech. Then Danvers wrung the

hand of his friend, and set out for the barracks.

Many sober faces clustered around Eva when she said good-bye next

morning, but Burroughs' was not among them. He had said nothing of his

humiliation, but had avoided meeting Miss Thornhill again. Her father

was greatly dissatisfied; he thought that Eva's reception of the

attention of other men had offended the trader, and he did not spare his

blame for such a condition of things. Eva maintained her equanimity,

feeling that she had done well to preserve the secret of her engagement,

and to win Philip's pledge to silence.

Two months later Robert Burroughs sold out his trading-post, and he,

too, prepared to return to the States. When he told Pine Coulee that she

was to return to her father's lodge with the boy, he was, for the first

time, afraid of the woman. All her savage blood surged in protest; his

offers to support their child were spurned. He was glad when the squaw

was sullenly silent in the lodges of her tribe, and he determined never

to come again to Macleod--to leave the past behind him. That was his

dominant thought as he started out for Fort Benton, accompanied by his

familiar, Wild Cat Bill.

Their life at Fort Macleod had been in many ways one of jeopardy. He had

run incredible risks of exposure and ruin, but he had won, through sheer

audacity and bravado. He smiled covertly as he recalled the fact that

he, the greatest whiskey smuggler in the Whoop Up Country, was also the

privileged friend of an unsuspecting, honorable, upright

officer--Colonel Macleod. Even his hardened conscience pricked as he

thought how he had deceived one who, with somewhat more of acumen, and

somewhat less of belief in men, would have been most severe on his

wrong-doing.

But that was over. To turn to less reprehensible and underhand ways

would be easy, he was sure. Or, if he found that the old ways of

accomplishing his purpose were more profitable, he would exercise them

on bigger projects in Montana. He had made a fortune in the Whoop Up

Country. Now he intended to increase it in the development of Montana's

resources. He proposed to marry and rear a family, as became a

prosperous and respected citizen.

Dreams of statehood were beginning to waken into hope of reality among

the sturdy men who dwelt in the territory, and during this journey south

Burroughs confided to Bill his ambition to sit in the United States

Senate. Fortune had favored him so far. All that was necessary to

further his ambitions was to be as shrewd and cautious as he had been

hitherto, and all things should be his--with Bill's help. Bill

listened--that was his role for the time being. But he thought well of

the plans, and said so before his chief referred to quite another

subject--Pine Coulee and the boy. Here Bill found no words.

Burroughs opined that the episode with Pine Coulee was nothing. She was

a fool to expect him to continue their relations simply because there

was a child. He would see that they did not suffer. Really Sweet Oil Bob

felt a glow of self-approval as he talked. But few men in the Whoop Up

Country gave a thought to the comfort of the squaws when they left them.

And as for the children--let them go with their mothers! It was the

easiest thing imaginable.

To Danvers it seemed that half the population of Fort Macleod was

leaving, since Scar Faced Charlie had departed months before, and Toe

String Joe had been dishonorably discharged and gone out of the

country. Only the loyal O'Dwyer remained, and to him he sometimes spoke

of Fort Benton friends. To Eva he wrote with every outgoing mail, and

watched eagerly for a sign from her when a chance freighter should bring

the Fort Benton mail. Then fever broke out in the barracks and Danvers

spent his nights caring for the others and had little time for thought.

His splendid constitution seemed able to bear any amount of fatigue, and

he boasted that the loss of sleep was nothing--that he preferred to talk

to some one--he had not enough to do to keep busy!

But he overestimated his strength, and when a mail was brought with no

letter from Eva the disappointment and anxiety told on his already

overtaxed constitution. O'Dwyer was the last to convalesce, and even he

was no longer in need of constant attention. With the relaxing of the

strain came Philip's utter collapse. The fever was on him, and for weeks

he talked deliriously of English lanes, of his sister Kate, of his rise

in the service, but never of Eva Thornhill. It was as if some psychic

power guarded his lips and loyally preserved his secret.

The spring flowers were budding when he again breathed the outer air,

and it was a gaunt figure which sat in the lee of the stockade one day

in May and took the package of letters brought from Fort Benton.

At last! Eva's first letter lay in his hand. He forgave her the long

silence. The winter had been unusually severe and to the irregularity of

the mails he ascribed his love's apparent defection. With trembling

fingers he opened the thin envelope. The letter had no heading.

_"I have told father of my promise to you. He refuses absolutely to

sanction it and declares I shall never marry an Englishman. I now

agree with father that it would be very unwise. I hate the army,

and you say you will never leave it. It is best that we understand

each other at once, and very fortunate that we agreed not to speak

of our engagement. I have not heard from you in three months, and

so I presume you are tired of it and as glad to break as I am."_

That was all. The dazed convalescent remembered that his letter was

mailed the very day that he went to the hospital, and his promise of

silence made it impossible to ask another to notify her of his

condition. Fate's cruelty bit deep. The heartlessness of Eva's dismissal

pierced his soul. Mechanically he took up a letter from his sister.

"_Dear brother Philip_," her letter began. _"We have written and

written. What has become of you these last months? Haven't you

received the solicitor's letters or mine, telling you of father's

sudden death, and the discovery that we are almost penniless--all

the fortune gone?"_

Danvers gasped, weakly, at the wealth of disaster. He had always

regarded his father as an exceptionally acute man of business. And

now.... The letters of which his sister Kate wrote had never reached

him. The mail service was wretched, he knew; but it seemed incredible

that such important letters should be lost. He turned to the other

envelopes just received. Yes, there were three from the family

solicitors, and one from Arthur Latimer. These from England had probably

lain at Fort Benton all winter. Presently he read on:

_"However, you no doubt have received them all by this time. I

write this, in haste, to ask you to meet me at Fort Benton by the

middle of June, as I shall come to America in time to take the

first boat leaving Bismarck. I shall have about a hundred pounds

when I start. I am determined to come to you."_

With some expression of grief at their bereavement, and anticipation of

seeing her brother, the letter closed.

Come up to the Whoop Up Country! His young, unsophisticated sister? She

must not! He started up, thinking to send a rider to Fort Benton with a

message to cable to London. But she would already have started. And how

could he support her in England? How support her in any country on his

small income, used as she was to every luxury? It was horrible! What to

do! What to do! At last he took up Latimer's letter. At least here would

be something to put heart into a fellow, he thought, hopefully. The bold

handwriting seemed so like the light-hearted Southerner that a wan smile

played over Philip's ghastly face. The smile faded to be replaced by

agony as the sense of the words was absorbed--words leaping at him,

fiendishly:

_"Dear Old Chum--I am the happiest fellow alive. Eva Thornhill and

I were married last week, and our only regret was that you could

not be my best man. I spoke of it several times. How did this

happen, you ask? Why, I was fortunate enough to fall heir to

something like twenty-five thousand dollars this winter, and, after

settling the question whether there was any understanding between

you and Eva (she assured me there never had been) I sailed right

in--and she is mine._

_"Old boy! Eva's the dearest little piece of guilelessness in the

world. She's told me all about Burroughs, and even confessed that

she used to admire you; but she thought you very reserved. I have

told how companionable you really are and how she should have

captured you. But she shakes her pretty head and says that she is

jealous of you--that I am fonder of you than of her! She's a rogue!

I used to be dumbly jealous of the other fellows, knowing how poor

I was. I had to keep myself well in hand, I tell you, especially

when I used to see you two together. But if Eva had cared for you

(how could she help it?) I'd have been the first one to

congratulate you. We could not be rivals, could we, dear old man?_

_"We are going East for the summer, and the doctor goes with us as

far as St. Louis. Wish us well, Phil! Why haven't you written? I

know it has been a bad winter and only two mails from Macleod, but

I expected to hear at least once._

_"I wish that you could find so ideal a wife as mine. Dear,

innocent, truthful--what more can man ask?"_

Danvers pulled himself up from the bench, wondering why the day had

grown so cold, where the sunshine had gone. He replaced Latimer's letter

in its envelope, dully, slowly:

"'Truthful--innocent!'" he quoted. "Poor Arthur!" He laughed--a dreadful

sound. Then he fell face downward--and so they found him.

* * * * *

A pale-faced youth looked with dilated eyes on the nearing town of Fort

Benton. It was Philip Danvers, late second lieutenant of the North West

Mounted Police of Canada. He had lived through the shock which the three

letters had brought on his fever-weakened frame, and during his

convalescence determined to leave the service and seek employment at

Fort Benton. To his colonel alone he gave his reasons. His sister Kate

was a delicate girl, unused to adversity. His pay was insufficient to

support her, even if she could have lived at Fort Macleod. She must be

safe-guarded. For three long, hard, lonely years he had dreamed of a

commission, and now that he had secured it he must give it up, together

with hope of further advancement. There was no alternative.

As the band played "The Girl I Left Behind Me" (invariably rendered when

men in the English service change garrison), O'Dwyer stepped forward to

say good-bye.

"Sure, Phil," he blubbered, "I'll lave the service 's soon's me time's

up, now ye're gone! I'll folley ye to Fort Benton!"

Danvers turned tear-dimmed eyes away from his friend, from the low fort

and the weather-beaten stockade, and resolutely denied himself the pain

of looking back to catch the last flutter of the Union Jack as the long

rise of land dipped toward the south. How often had he strained his eyes

to see that symbol of his country as he returned from the various forays

and hunting trips! But duty called! This was the only thought that he

dared allow himself--and his sister, his sister! She had no one but him

to look to, and in his loneliness she was a comforting thought, and

worth all the sacrifice of his life's ambitions.

While he had lain unconscious, in his illness, she had arrived at the

head of navigation, and had written him girlish, impatient letters. He

knew that Latimer would look out for her if he and Eva had returned from

their wedding trip, but he was sure they had not, and felt an equal

relief that he need offer no congratulations. The doctor, too, Arthur

had told him, was in St. Louis. He wondered how his sister had passed

the time. Once she had mentioned meeting Burroughs, and he knew that she

was living at the little hotel that he remembered. He was frantic to

reach his destination and assume a brother's responsibility for the

simple-hearted, yielding, young English girl, brought abruptly into the

rough Western life.

As he drew near the growing town of Fort Benton he was astounded at the

sight of what seemed quite a metropolis to his eyes, so long accustomed

to the log buildings and the scant population of Fort Macleod.

As the road dipped over the bench and led into town he saw, riding to

meet him--was it his sister?--and with her, Robert Burroughs!

But Danvers was on his feet, and as he assisted the girl to dismount she

slid into his arms and put up her lips for a kiss.

When something like coherence was evolved from the rush of questions and

answers, Kate turned shyly toward Burroughs, who still sat upon his

horse.

She took her brother by the hand.

"Phil, dear, you have not spoken to Mr. Burroughs. He has told me so

much of your life together in the Whoop Up Country, and what friends you

are. He has been most kind to me. When I learned that you were ill, I

was so alarmed--alone! But he--that is--I----"

"Why, it's this way, Danvers," interrupted Burroughs, speaking with more

correctness than Phil had before heard him, and willingly taking the

onus of explanation--his hour had come. "Your sister couldn't go to

Macleod, of course. She couldn't stay here, alone. You'll stay with the

Police, no doubt; and, as Latimer and his wife are away, it fitted right

in with my plans"--he paused to enjoy the dismay on Danvers' face--"to

ask Kate to do me the honor of marrying me. You remember," he hastened

to add, "don't you, that I once told you that you'd not only never marry

Eva Thornhill, but that I'd marry your sister?"

The dark, exultant face flashed the same look of hate that greeted

Philip on the _Far West_, and later gloomed through the dimly lighted

trading-post on the night of the dance! With a groan Danvers realized,

as he looked at his suddenly shrinking sister, that the sacrifice of his

life's ambition had been in vain.

[Illustration]

BOOK III

_THE STATE_

"_What constitutes a state?_

* * * * *

_Men who their duty know._"

[Illustration]

Chapter I

Visitors from Helena

Philip Danvers, cattleman, nearing Fort Benton on his return from a

round-up, found his thoughts reverting to the past. The spring day was

like another that he remembered when he first caught sight of the

frontier town more than a dozen years before. He noted the smoke of a

railroad locomotive as it trailed into nothingness, and involuntarily he

looked toward the Missouri River; but there was no boat steaming up the

river, and the unfurrowed water brought a sadness to his face.

He recalled the doctor's vigorous opposition a few years previous, when

the question of a railroad came before the residents of Fort Benton.

Perhaps the doctor had been right in thinking that the river traffic

would be destroyed, and with it the future of the town. Certainly his

derided prophecy had been most literally fulfilled. Instead of becoming

a second St. Louis, the village lay in undisturbed tranquillity, but

little larger than when the _Far West_ had brought the first recruits of

the North West Mounted Police to its levees. To those who loved the

place, who believed in it, the result caused by the changing conditions

of Western life was well-nigh heartbreaking.

Instead of the terminus of a great waterway--the port where gold was

brought by the ton to be shipped East from the territorial diggings; the

stage where moved explorer, trader, miner and soldier--instead of being

the logical metropolis of the entire Northwest, Fort Benton lay a drowsy

little village, embowered in cottonwoods and dependent upon the

cattlemen who made it their headquarters for shipping.

The lusty bull-whacker's yell, the mule-skinner's cry and the pop of

long, biting whips were heard no more in the broad, sweeping curve of

the Missouri. The levees were no longer crowded with bales of

merchandise, piles of buffalo hides and boxes of gold. No steamers tied

up to the rotting snubbing-posts; the bustle of the roustabouts, the

oaths of the mates, the trader's activity had vanished forever, as

irrevocably as the buffalo on the plains. Nothing in the prospect

before him suggested to Danvers the well-remembered past except the old

adobe fort on the water's edge. One bastion and a part of a wall

recalled to the Anglo-American his first homesick night in the

Northwest. Even the trading-posts on the river between Bismarck and Fort

Benton were abandoned.

The man had altered as well. It was evident that the shy reserve of the

Kentish youth had changed to the dignity of the reticent man. The

military bearing remained; the eyes were steady and observant, as of

old; but the youthful red and white of his face had been replaced by a

clear tan, marked by lines of thought. In a country of bearded and

seldom-shaved men, Philip's clean face added not a little to that look

of distinction which had impressed the passengers on the _Far West_ and

gained the first enmity of Robert Burroughs.

Danvers was still unmarried. At rare intervals he read the old clipping

of the two souls separated and seeking each other, but the legend had

grown dim. The romantic dreams of boyhood were gone. He doubted that his

heart would ever be roused again; that the phoenix flame of love would

rise from the ashes of what he knew had been but the stirring of

adolescent blood when he fancied that he loved Eva Thornhill. The home

life of others had not impressed him as a dream fulfilled. The gradual

disillusionment of the many was disheartening, and Latimer's worn,

unhappy face was a constant reminder. Arthur Latimer! That blithe

Southerner--believer in men--and women! Philip knew what had made him

seek forgetfulness in the law and politics. The success of his friend,

who had reached his goal, on the supreme bench, had gratified Danvers,

and Latimer's enthusiasm and persistent belief in the ultimate good,

when the builders and founders of the newly formed State should merge

personal desires into one--one that had the best good of all for its

incentive, tempered his dislike for American politics.

Not long after the round-up, Philip Danvers received a call from Wild

Cat Bill, now known in Montana as the Honorable William Moore. His

ability to promote big enterprises, whether floating a mining company or

electing a friend to the legislature, was publicly known, and Danvers

wondered silently what had brought the politician from Helena to the

semi-deserted town of Fort Benton, and induced him to favor him with a

call.

"Yes, Danvers," volunteered the affable Moore, "I just thought I'd take

a few days off and see what the old place looked like."

Danvers noticed that he had dropped the vernacular, though his speech

was characteristic of the West.

"It's always a pleasure to go back to the early days, when we roughed it

together," Bill went on.

Philip doubted the pleasure. He recognized this sentiment as a very

recent acquisition in the Honorable William Moore, and waited for

further enlightenment as to the real purpose of the visit.

"The old bunch turned out pretty well, after all," Moore commented.

"Robert Burroughs is a millionaire! Your sister was in luck, all right!

And Bob was tickled to death when a baby came. A big girl by this time!"

A dangerous look--a look that made Wild Cat Bill remember the night of

the dance at the trading-post--warned the Honorable William to drop

personalities. The one fact that made the position of his sister

tolerable to Danvers was the knowledge that Burroughs took pride in his

wife and child and lavished his wealth upon them.

"And you and the doctor still cling to Fort Benton!" The next remark of

the caller was spoken with commiseration. "Is the doctor still preaching

its future?"

Danvers winced at what seemed a thrust at an old friend. "My cattle make

it necessary for me to ship from Fort Benton and--I like the place," he

acknowledged without apology.

"And Joe Hall--you recall Toe String Joe?"

There was ample reason why Philip Danvers should remember the disloyal

trooper, dishonorably discharged.

"Queer idea of Joe's to enlist in the first place," continued Moore. "He

made a much better miner. You're following his case in court, I

suppose?"

A subtle change in expression made the cattleman aware that all his

visitor's remarks had been preliminary to this one. It was, then, the

famous case of Hall vs. Burroughs that for some reason Bill Moore

thought worth a trip from Helena to discuss.

"Burroughs can't afford to lose that case," declared Moore.

"He'll lose it if Joe has fair play!" cried Danvers.

Philip felt no love for the recruit of early days, but his sense of

justice asserted itself when he recalled the years that Burroughs had

made a tool of Toe String Joe at Fort Macleod, and later robbed him of

his mining claim at Helena. Burroughs had grub-staked him and secured a

half interest. At a time when Joe was down sick, and hard pressed with

debts, Burroughs rushed a sale with Eastern capitalists and forced Joe

Hall to relinquish the claim for $25,000. When Joe discovered that it

had brought $125,000, and that Burroughs had pocketed the difference,

he went to law and won his suit. Burroughs had appealed, and now the

case was before the Supreme Court.

"There are politics in the Supreme Court as well as elsewhere," ventured

Moore, with a meaning look.

"It is usually thought otherwise, I believe."

"I don't know what's usually thought. I know it's a fact."

"Perhaps corruption can be found----"

"Perhaps!" sneered the caller. "I tell you politics is a matter of

a-gittin' plenty while you're gittin'."

"I was not speaking of politics, but of corruption."

"What's the difference?" cynically. "Now, I say that Judge Latimer can

be influenced."

"Indeed!"

"I'm thinking that it would be safe to approach him in this case of

Bob's."

"Are you going to try it?" Danvers' tone continued impersonal.

The Honorable William Moore hurried on. He breathed as one having put

forth more strength than was required--breathed as he had breathed when

the detachment of Mounted Police rode up to the small trading-post where

he had barely succeeded in concealing his smuggled whiskey. He laughed

a little, threw his cigar away and put his thumbs firmly together with

fingers clasped--a familiar mannerism.

"See here, Danvers! This case mustn't go against Burroughs. Bob's a good

fellow. He did what any one else would have done. He wasn't looking out

for Joe Hall. He did all the head-work, and at the time Joe was

satisfied with the price. Of course you know that Bob's going to run for

United States Senator next winter. And he's not over popular in Montana;

you know how it is, moneyed interest against labor (so the common herd

think), and this case has made more talk than everything else put

together that Bob ever did."

"Well?" Philip's eyes had a gleam that Moore did not care to meet.

Perhaps he had been too confidential. He walked about the room,

nervously, his right hand grasping the rear of his coat. At last he

forced himself to say bluntly:

"If you'll go to Judge Latimer and tell him how you feel--that Burroughs

is your brother-in-law--that sort of talk, and that if the case goes

against Bob, Latimer'll never get re-elected to the supreme bench--oh,

you know what to say. Anyway, if you'll do this you'll be twenty-five

thousand dollars better off--that's all; and I tell you, you'll need the

money before next winter is over if this drouth continues. Your cattle

must be in bad shape now. Just tell Latimer how you feel."

"How do you know how I feel about this case?" Danvers kept himself well

under control, though he felt his blood pounding.

"It isn't so much what you feel as what you say."

Philip looked at the man.

"You haven't got the money, Bill."

"Haven't I?" boasted Moore. "Look at this!" He made a quick dive inside

his coat. "Three packages of twenty-five thousand each!" He exulted as

he displayed the bills. "They were handed to me just before I took the

train, and----"

"Bill Moore," said the cattleman curiously, "did you think for a moment

that I could be purchased?"

The Honorable Mr. Moore sparred.

"Or Arthur Latimer?" continued Danvers.

"What else am I here for?" cried Moore in a rage. "Every man's got his

price. Latimer's poor as a church mouse. He's got a wife like a vampire.

And as for you--I know cattle raising isn't all profit!"

"The trouble with you, Bill," said Danvers, dispassionately, "is that

you judge every man by yourself. You can't understand a man like Judge

Latimer--the thing would be impossible!"

"It's you who are judging by yourself! We all know you're a fanatic--or

used to be. I thought perhaps you'd gotten over some of those notions. I

know Judge Latimer as well as you do. If we don't get him one way, we'll

take another. We're goin' to win!"

Danvers made no reply. The Honorable William waited for a moment, and

then put back the packages he had flung on the table. He looked his

surprise; he could not understand how he had been foiled with no anger.

"You say you know my standards," began Danvers, slowly. "Then why did

you come to me?"

"We had to make the try; nobody could influence Judge Latimer like you."

"But what good would the money do him?" questioned Danvers, unable to

follow the reasoning of the politician. "It would be found out and

Latimer would be ruined."

"Oh, no, it wouldn't." Moore was hopeful again.

"Why didn't you approach him yourself?" It was an afterthought.

"It looks more natural for you to be interested in your brother-in-law.

Bob said to see you."

"So this is his method of beginning a campaign for a seat in the United

States Senate!"

"We knew we could trust you!" replied Moore.

And Danvers knew that the man believed he was paying a sincere tribute.

More than a month after this conversation Judge Latimer also paid a

visit to Fort Benton and straightway sought his dearest friend.

"I wanted to get away from business, from--everything that distracts

one," he explained, "and I wanted to see you, Phil, and the doctor, and

dear old sleepy Fort Benton again."

He looked worn and distracted--thinner than Philip remembered him, and

in need of something more than physical relaxation.

"Are you quite well, Arthur?" asked Danvers solicitously. "I'm going to

have the doctor over to give you a thorough examination, and I'll see

that you carry out all his directions. You don't take a bit of care of

yourself!"

But in the evening, after a day in the open air, he brightened, and

under the old spell of comradeship he took on the boyish manner that had

been so marked a characteristic.

"And how are all our friends at Helena?" inquired the doctor, after he

had secured a favorable report of Eva and the baby. "All well, of

course, or I should have heard from them!" he went on, with the

geniality that Latimer remembered so well. "And little Arthur--he must

be quite a lad now----"

"Six--and so proud of his new sister," replied the father, with a note

of pride that Danvers marked with thankfulness. The tenderness in the

man's eyes told him that this little son was the sole balm of a

harrassed life, and he wondered if even this great compensation was

adequate for all the man had given--and lost.

"Why didn't you bring the little chap with you?" questioned the doctor.

"I did think of it," confessed Latimer, "but this is a business trip

chiefly, if I must own up to it. I want to talk over the situation with

someone I know--someone I can trust."

"Anything special?" asked the doctor.

"Politics!" replied the judge. "The political pot is beginning to get a

scum on the top, preparatory to boiling."

"How domestic a simile!" jeered the doctor.

Latimer laughed. "We've been without a maid lately, and I've had a

chance to see the inside workings of a kitchen. Not that it's Eva's

fault," he added hastily. "Maids are hard to get."

"H-m-m," assented the doctor, judicially, and soon the three were deep

in Montana politics.

The probable nominees for state officials were gone over, and Danvers

remarked:

"You are sure of re-election, Arthur."

"No, I'm not; not even of nomination," objected the judge. "The

Honorable William Moore has been to see me----"

Danvers shot him a keen glance, and the doctor listened curiously.

"He was interested in the Hall and Burroughs case." Latimer hesitated,

and a spot of color suddenly burned in his cheeks. "Moore evidently

thought it necessary to come to me and ask that Burroughs have _fair

play_!"

The doctor laughed. It was an opportunity to tease the boy he loved; not

a serious impeachment of the character of the judge of the Supreme

Court.

"He offered me a hundred thousand dollars if I'd take a rest! Suggested

Europe!" The judge's voice trembled.

"The devil he did!" burst from the physician.

"He raised his price by the time he got to you," commented Danvers.

"What?" Latimer whirled, amazed, toward the speaker.

"When Moore asked me to intercede with you for Burroughs he had only

twenty-five thousand for each of us."

"What does Burroughs think I am?" groaned the judge. "He should know me

better than to send Moore on his dirty business, but nothing I could say

made any impression. He left, telling me to think it over."

"Do you know if he tried the others?"

"No. I've not mentioned the matter to anyone--except Eva. I was so

outraged that I had to speak to someone. And she--she doesn't

understand. She would enjoy a trip to Europe, and I--I can't give it to

her."

His two friends were silent, and presently Latimer went on.

"And all this means that when it comes time to go before the convention

this fall I shall have Burroughs and his cohorts against me."

"You seem sure of his opposition," remarked Danvers. "The case isn't

decided yet. If it is in favor of Burroughs----"

"The decision was handed down this morning. It was in favor of Hall."

"Good!" chorused Danvers and the doctor.

"The election will turn out all right for you, too," prophesied the

doctor, "and especially with Danvers to help. The judge and I have been

plotting against you for some time, Phil," he explained. "We want you to

go into politics."

Danvers shook his head.

"Wait a minute," urged the doctor. "It's like this, Danvers. You're an

American, as much as we are. You have taken out your naturalization

papers. You never think of leaving Montana. You have a splendid cattle

business, and you love Fort Benton almost as much as I do."

The cattleman smiled as the doctor outlined his position, and owned that

he did love the country of his adoption.

"And here's poor Latimer struggling on alone up there at Helena, while

you and I devote our time to making a fortune----"

"What are you offered for lots in Fort Benton now, Doctor?" teased

Latimer, with a flash of his old humor. "Let me explain, Phil," he said.

"I know it would be a sacrifice for you to leave your business here;

you've made a success with your cattle, and I envy you the independent,

care-free existence."

"You don't appreciate the difficulties with drouths and blizzards," put

in Danvers, "to say nothing of competition and low prices."

"Nothing!" exclaimed Latimer, with a gesture of his hand that swept away

such trivialities like mere cobwebs that annoy but do not obstruct the

vision. "All this is nothing! It is the complications with men--the

relations with people--that weary and sicken and break the heart! I've

tried to put up a clean record, a straight fight; I've tried to give

honest service, and it seems as if the odds were all against me!"

"What do you want?" asked Danvers, more moved at the sight of his

friend's distress than the need of his country.

"We want to put you in the Legislature as the senator from Chouteau

County!" cried Latimer, flushed and eager. "If only a better class of

men would go into politics! I can't blame them for wanting to keep out,

and yet what is our country coming to? What can one man do alone? If you

or the doctor or men of that character were in office, it wouldn't be so

hard a fight. And with you in Helena, Phil----"

The familiar name, in the soft voice of the Southerner, stirred the

heart of Danvers like a caress. He was lonely, too--he had not realized

how much so, till the hand of his friend was stretched out to him, not

only for aid, but for companionship. His heart throbbed as it had not

done since a woman fired his boyish imagination. In the long years on

the range he had grown indifferent, and rejoiced in his lack of feeling.

Now he was waking, he was ready to take up his work in the world of men,

ready to open his heart at the call of one who would be his mate.

"I might be induced to run, since you put it so strongly," said Danvers,

with a lightness that did not conceal from either of his friends the

depth of his feeling.

"Thank you, Phil."

Danvers took the thin, nervous hand extended to him, and held it with a

grasp that sent courage into the heart of Judge Latimer. It was a hand

that had guided bucking bronchos and held lassoed steers, and the man

weary with life's battles knew that a friend had come to his aid who

would blench at no enemy.

"Do you need any more men?" inquired Danvers, with a tone of assurance

and natural leadership that amazed them both.

"Do we _need_ them? Can you produce any more? That is the question,"

said Latimer.

"There's always O'Dwyer, of course!" laughed Danvers.

"Is he as devoted as ever?" inquired Latimer.

"The same old worshipper," declared the doctor. "And, by George! now you

speak of it, he wouldn't make a bad representative!"

The three men talked over the situation and planned a brief campaign,

sending Arthur Latimer home, cheered and strengthened. Nevertheless,

after they had said good-bye at the station, the doctor turned to

Danvers with a heavy sigh.

"Latimer's heart is in bad condition. He's going to have trouble with

it. And the nervous strain he lives under so constantly is more than I

can reckon with. If he could rest at home--but I know how it was when

they lived at Fort Benton!"

"Arthur has changed," said Danvers, sadly.

"I'll never forget," said the doctor, speaking more freely than ever

before, "the time when Latimer first discovered that Eva did not care

for him. He took it all to himself, and was broken-hearted because he

had failed to keep her affections. Think of it!"

"Did she ever care for him?" Danvers could not resist asking.

"I hardly think so. I always had an idea that her heart--what there is

of it--was captured by an army officer." He looked slyly at his

companion as they walked through the gloom.

"Nothing so low in rank as a second lieutenant!" evaded Danvers.

"You were fortunate, after all, Philip, though it would have been better

for Eva. She needed a master--and she took our gentle, sensitive,

chivalrous Arthur! He will break; break like fine tempered steel when

the strain becomes too great."

[Illustration]