And so, without any special announcement, and without any invitation, the visitors took their way, when it was late enough, to the large room at the back of Mike Cheney's place, where they knew they would be made heartily welcome. And to tell the truth, a welcome of some kind was something the men felt the need of. Rain had begun to fall quite heavily—what had looked like a mere thunder shower when it appeared first in the north-east, had steadied down to an all-night rain. And certainly MacMurray's lodging house offered no cheer. No one, furthermore, even cast his eyes a second time in the direction of the two large log buildings the government had erected for immigrants without shelter.
The room at the back of Cheney's place was blue with smoke that rendered almost useless the large kerosene lamp that hung from the ceiling. In one corner of the room a small group were already well into a game of poker. Though the stakes were of necessity low—for what can men do on a dollar a day?—the interest in the game was sufficiently high to attract a half dozen spectators who watched the play in silence and smoked incessantly.
In another corner three or four land-seekers were exchanging opinions of the fine points of the law governing the rights of the "squatter," and the rather intricate regulations that made provision for what is known as "jumping" a claim.
In the corner farthest from the door where Mike Cheney stood at the service of his customers, Big Bill McCartney was listening to what one of the red-coated visitors had to say about the effect of solitude on a man's nerves. The subject was one that evidently appealed strongly to one of MacDougall's men, whose mood was rather too jovial for so early in the evening and whose literary instincts prompted him to attempt the metrical flights of the lines beginning,
"I am monarch of all I survey."
McCartney pushed him back on the bench where he had been sitting and turned to hear something that Cheney was offering to the discussion.
"There's another thing about this country," said Mike, leaning towards McCartney and the red-coat. "It's a-gettin' to some of the boys in a way they never expected."
He paused a moment to wipe up a little water from the table with his cloth.
"Now there was old Bob Nason—he was before your time here, Bill. He was one of the first to come in here when the trail was opened into the valley. There was a good fellow for you—an' a good man too. No better ever put foot on the ground. Saw him heave a barrel of salt into the back end of his wagon—just like that."
Mike used appropriate gestures to show how easily the thing had been done.