"Yes."
"Things is awful dull over our way; wouldn't like to miss anything. I brought over a few of the boys. It's Wah-na-gi; ain't it?"
McShay was adaptable. It was perhaps a large part of his success in life. He could be vulgar and common with the vulgar and common, or he could follow those who went up into the mountains and looked into a far country, and whether with those who grovelled or those who stood on the heights, each kind felt he was one of them, and there was no hypocrisy in this. He understood and sympathized with both. There was nothing offensive in the way he said:
"It's Wah-na-gi."
"How did you know it was Wah-na-gi?"
"Why, son," and a broad smile spread over the cowman's face, "everybody on the range knows you're sweet on Wah-na-gi. Presumably, too, you was not unaware that the amiable Ladd had threatened to shoot you on sight, and that the gentle Appah has promised himself your scalp as a Christmas present!"
"I knew I wasn't exactly popular at the Agency just now."
"And so you just went over and took her? Well, it was a fool thing to do; but it's kind of appealin,' Parson, it's appealin'. What was that young feller's name—none of your Eastern tenderfeet—the young feller that come out of the West?"
"Rode out of the West?" corrected McCloud with a twinkle in his eye. "That hero was a Scotchman, Mike."
"Couldn't be, Parson; couldn't be. The Scotchman will risk his neck for religion or a pinch of change, but not for the ladies. No, I'll bet he was on the border, and mostly on our side. But this feller here!" and he put his hand on the shoulder of the boy with unmistakable liking; "an Englishman, too! Beats all, don't it? Anyway he loves a fight. Must have a dash of the Irish in him somewhere, even if it's the damn Protestant variety; savin' your presence, Parson. Sure, I took to him when he put it all over Ladd, and when I count a man my friend, I ain't over-nice as to his failin's. Say, it's too bad he's an Englishman, ain't it? He's saved by the Injin in him, I guess. That's the truth."