"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.