No superfluous words were spoken. "What'd yeh do it fer?" The angry trader whirled, the teamster facing him.
"You let Pine Coulee alone!" mumbled Charlie, far gone in liquor.
"That's it, eh?" commented the enlightened Burroughs, turning away contemptuously. "Like hell I will!"
Not long after Arthur Latimer answered a recent letter from the doctor in Fort Benton. He gave a vivid account of recent events and of a dinner that had been given at the military post on Christmas day to which he had been invited.
"After the dinner," he continued, "the boys sang for an hour or more. They have good voices, and it was worth a long journey to hear them sing 'The Wearing of the Green.'
"Colonel Macleod seemed to enjoy the music immensely, and (I don't see how he happened to think of it) he called Danvers up and asked him if he knew anything from 'Il Trovatore.' Phil saluted and said that he had heard it in London. Thereupon the colonel asked him if he could sing any of the airs. Phil hesitated, but the commanding officer's request is tantamount to a command, and after a moment he began the 'Miserere.' The men were still as death. Probably they had never heard it before. You, of course, remember that superb tenor solo—the haunting misery, the despair! And what do you think? When he got to the duet I took Leonora's part. Phil gave a little start, but kept on singing, and we carried the duet through. My! but the men nearly tore us to shreds. O'Dwyer fairly lifted Phil off his feet, at this triumph of his hero, for he has taken a great liking to our silent Englishman. The colonel thanked us with delightful appreciation and soon after went out—more quiet than ever. I reckon he was homesick. We all were—a bit. Sweethearts and wives seemed very far away that night.
"You speak of Scar Faced Charlie's avowed intention of abandoning his freighting. He'll probably never come up here again. He recently sent me some cash I'd loaned him, and he intimated as much. Before he left here he returned his squaw, Pine Coulee, to her father; then Burroughs bought her for a bunch of ponies.
"Me-Casto couldn't compete—poor devil. He, like all Indians, had gambled away his small stock of ponies early in the fall—as Burroughs well knew."
"Come on, Arthur," called Danvers, cheerily, as he stuck his head into the room. "There's a dance on at Bob's trading-post."