The coming of the steamboat always held the potentialities of a dramatic surprise, for they had no telegraph to warn them of whom or what she was bringing. This year they expected quite a crowd. In addition to their regular visitors, Duncan Seton, the Company inspector, and Bishop Trudeau on his rounds, the government was sending in a party of surveyors to lay off homesteads across the river, and Mr. Pringle, the Episcopal missionary, was returning to resume his duties. An added spice of anticipation was lent by the fact that the latter was expected to bring his sister to keep house for him. There had been no white woman at Fort Enterprise since the death of Mrs. Gaviller many years before. But, as Miss Pringle was known to be forty years old, the excitement on her account was not undue. Her mark would be Gaviller, the younger men said, affecting not to notice the trader’s annoyance.
Gaviller had put a big boat’s whistle on his darling Spirit River, and the mellow boom of it brought them on a run out of the store before she hove in sight around the islands in front of Grampierre’s. Gaviller had his binoculars. He could no longer keep up his pretence of calmness.
“Three twenty-eight!” he cried, excitedly. “Didn’t I tell you! Who says we can’t keep time up here! She’ll run her plank ashore at three forty-five to the dot!”
“There she is!” they cried, as she poked her nose around the islands.
“Good old tub!”
“By God! she’s a pretty sight—white as a swan!”
“And floats like one!”
“Some class to that craft, sir!”
Meanwhile Gaviller was nervously focussing his binoculars. “By Golly! there’s a big crowd on deck!” he cried. “Must be ten or twelve beside the crew!”
“Can you see the petticoat?” asked Doc Giddings. “Gee! I hope she can cook!”