He often thought that he never had seen a more heterogeneous gathering than that which assembled at times around the table. And with Longfellow in the dining-room, ethnological dissertations in one end of the bunk-house, and personal reminiscences and experiences in gun-fights and affairs of the heart in the other end, there was afforded a sufficient variety of mental diversion to suit nearly any taste.
McArthur in the rôle of desperado seemed preposterous to Ralston; yet he remembered that Ben Reed, a graduate of a theological seminary, who could talk tears into the eyes of an Apache, was the slickest stock thief west of the Mississippi. He was well aware that a pair of mild eyes and gentle, ingenuous manners are many a rogue’s most valuable asset, and though the bug-hunter talked frankly of his pilgrimages into the hills, there was always a chance that his pursuit was a pose, his zeal counterfeit.
One evening which was typical of others, Ralston sat on the edge of his bunk, rolling an occasional cigarette and listening with huge enjoyment to the conversation of a group around the sheet-iron stove, of which McArthur was the central figure.
McArthur, riding his hobby enthusiastically, quite forgot the character of his listeners, and laid his theories regarding the interchange of mammalian life between America and Asia during the early Pleistocene period, before Meeteetse Ed, Old Man Rulison, Tubbs, and others, in the same language in which he would have argued moot questions with colleagues engaged in similar research. The language of learning was as natural to McArthur as the vernacular of the West was to Tubbs, and in moments of excitement he lapsed into it as a foreigner does into his native tongue under stress of feeling.
“I maintain,” asserted McArthur, with a gesture of emphasis, “that the Paleolithic man of Europe followed the mastodon to North America and here remained.”
Meeteetse Ed, whose cheeks were flushed, laid his hot hand upon his forehead and declared plaintively as he blinked at McArthur:
“Pardner, I’m gittin’ a headache from tryin’ to see what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Air you sayin’ anything a-tall,” demanded Old Man Rulison, suspiciously, “or air you joshin’?”
“Them’s words all right,” said Tubbs. “Onct I worked under a section boss over on the Great Northern what talked words like them. He believed we sprung up from tuds and lizards—and the likes o’ that. Yes, he did—on the square.”
“There are many believers in the theory of evolution,” observed McArthur.