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!