A Man of Two Countries

								

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