A Man of Two Countries

								

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.