Paul shifted his quid, spat, and shoved his pearl Fedora a little further over his ear. "G'lang there," he cried shaking the reins. "I reached my gun before he reached me," he said; "and I gave him the charge, bang in his little red eye. He reared up; and come down kerplunk right on top o' me; only I rolled away just in time!"
The trail to the Landing is considered something of a road up North; and the natives are apt to stare pityingly at the effeminate stranger who complains of the holes. It is something of a road compared to what comes after; but Natalie, hitherto accustomed to cushions and springs in her drives, could not conceive of anything worse. As the afternoon waned, what with the heat, the hard, narrow seat, and the incessant lurching and bumping of the crazy stage, which threw her now backward till her head threatened to snap off, and now forward on Nell's knees, the blooming roses in Natalie's cheeks faded, and her smile grew wan. Poor Garth, anxiously watching her, almost burst with suppressed solicitousness.
But at last the journey came to its end; and at six o'clock the Royal Mail with its bruised and famished passengers swung into the yard at Forbie's, the halfway house, fifty miles from Prince George. Garth had learned that the men slept in an outside bunkhouse, while the women were received into the farmhouse itself. He hastened to interview Mrs. Forbie in private, that the dreadful possibility of Natalie's being asked to share a room with the other woman passenger might be avoided. It is doubtful if Natalie would have taken any harm from poor old Nell; but Garth was a young man falling in love; and so, ferociously virtuous in judging Nell's kind. Natalie had a room to herself.
IV
THE STOPPING-HOUSE YARD
Next morning, Old Paul, assisted by Nell's dark companion, and the half-breed Xavier, was hitching up in the yard of Forbie's, when Nick Grylls appeared from the house, and walked heavily up and down at some distance moodily chewing a cigar. Big Nick was wondering dully what in hell was the matter with him. He had tossed in his bunk the night through; and now, at the beginning of the day, when a man should be at his heartiest, he found himself without appetite for his breakfast, and in a grinding temper, without any object to vent it on. In his little eyes, bloodshot with the lack of sleep, and unwonted emotion, there was an almost childish expression of bewilderment.
A deep sense of personal injury lay at the root of his discomfort. Nick was accustomed to think of himself as a whale of a fine fellow, as they say in the West; he heard every day that he was the smartest man up North; and, of course, he believed it. He regarded himself as a prince of generosity; for was not his liberality to the half-breed women a reproach among cannier white men? He was fond of children, too; and one of his amusements was to distribute handfuls of candy over the counter of his store. And candy ("French creams," God save the mark!) is worth seventy-five cents a pound on Lake Miwasa. When any poor fellow froze to death, or went "looney" in the great solitudes, it was Nick Grylls who dug deepest in his pocket for the relief of the unfortunate family. This, then, was the meat of his amazed grievance; that he, the great man, the patron, should, here in his own country, be coolly ignored by a mere boy and girl.