"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."