His forehead was a narrow strip of brown between his wiry black hair and the continuous streak of black that was his eyebrows. His eyes were large and black and quiet. His cheek bones were prominent and his jaw was so heavy as to throw his whole face out of balance, as you might say. The face of a stayer, you know. Never said much except as his duties demanded, and then he went straight to the point with a quiet directness that left little need for a question.
Superb little animal he was, too; had the maximum strength with the minimum weight, and a cool head to run it with. I never saw him impelled by sudden anger except once, and that is where the story begins.
In the spring of ’39 I took charge of the steamboat Yellowstone, as captain. We were loaded with supplies for the American Fur Company’s posts on the upper Missouri, and carried a number of engagés of the Company, and a certain Frenchman, Jules Latour, who had been appointed bourgeois of the old Fort Union, and was going up to take charge.
If there ever was an emperor in this country it was J. J. Astor, the head of the Company at that time, and his empire was spread pretty much all over the white space on the map of the West as it stood then. The bourgeois, masters of the trading posts, were the proconsuls, and they acted the part.
The engagés, humble servants of the empire, were as dogs about the feet of these Western princes, who stalked through their provinces, mountain-high in aristocratic aloofness.
Latour outprinced princeliness. He felt his dignity and dressed it; his presence on the boat was like a continual blowing of trumpets going before a conqueror. A capital “I” swaggering in broadcloth—that was Latour!
Recontre was going back with us, having dropped down to St. Louis the fall before on Company business. I happened to be near when master and man first met on the forward deck. They stared upon each other for only a moment; but there were years of hate condensed in that bit of time, the master casting a contemptuous glance from beneath lids scornfully drooped, and the servant meeting this with a sudden glare of black fire.
Not a word was passed; Recontre made no sign of obeisance, passing on with a sullen swing, his jaws set firmly, his eyes brilliant as with a smouldering fire blown by a gusty wind into a baleful glow.
It was a plain case of hate at first sight. A week later, after we had passed St. Mary’s, I was standing on the hurricane deck, gazing downstream where the colours of a quiet sunset swept the waters. I heard an angry snarl below me, and looking down, I saw Recontre lift the struggling Latour in his arms and hurl him into the river.
I immediately stopped the boat and ordered a crew to man the yawl and rescue Latour, at the same time having Recontre seized.