'Well, be up half past nine. Sharp on time, you know; I'll be there. Room No. 14. You'll find your way there by the smell of whisky. Least that's what Dave said. Wonderful nose Davey has for that sort nothing, anyway.'
'Right. If you don't turn up, I'll reckon the police have got hold of you for making a disturbance, eh?'
McAuliffe picked up his basket with a chuckle. 'I'm young enough to play the fool, but I'm too old to get caught,' he said. Then he made speedily towards the saloon, where he knew his elderly companions might still be found. A few minutes later he was vigorously quarrelling with the bar-tender, who wanted to eject him and his unhealthy burden.
It was a strange spectacle, one which probably might not be seen in any other country, thus to find several men, all of them distinctly past the prime of life, indulging in capricious acts of rowdyism which could only befit the average schoolboy. The officials of the H.B.C. chained down as they are for the greater part of life to the monotonous loneliness of some northern station, form a class apart from all others. As such a class they are especially distinguished by a strong craving after liquor—a natural product of a continued solitary existence—and a juvenile impetuosity of manner, which can only exhibit itself during their few days of leave, when they can return to civilisation to feel themselves again surrounded by fellow creatures. The reaction is a natural one. The anchorite who returns to the world generally plunges deeply into the whirling vortex of pleasure, to make up as far as possible for all he has lost. A conclusion points at once to the axiom, that folly is no respecter either of age or person.
It was half an hour after the time appointed, when McAuliffe, arm-in-arm with Dave Spencer, tumbled noisily into the hall of the hotel, where Captain Robinson was waiting behind another cigar of great proportion.
'Fact is,' burst forth the Factor, as he entered in cyclonic fashion, with a cut across the forehead and his big face adorned with several bruises, 'we had a bit of a row with some of the fellows. Come on upstairs. Captain; there we'll have a smooth time for next few hours. Yes, 'twas a regular set-to tussle,' he continued, as they arranged themselves upstairs. 'It wasn't so very far from a free fight. But we got the best of it. Yes, we diddled them—though we weren't much of a crowd, far as numbers went. Davey here came along just the right time, and mixed himself up fine. I tell you, Captain, you'd have curled up if you'd have seen Peter's face, when he spotted me sitting right down front of him, with a grin on my face you might have measured by yards. What with me encouraging him in a sort of whisper all the time, he couldn't talk worth shucks. I just wish I could have got his face photographed later on, when old Billy MacIntosh caught him per-lump on the end of the nose with a fairly meaty egg. Tell you, it would have drawn a grin out of a fence post. Dave was squirming around like a pesky worm.' He dropped heavily into a chair, and shook again with laughter.
'It's too bad, boys,' said Captain Robinson. 'Here were you having a smooth time, while I was putting in hard work.'
'Never mind. Captain,' said Dave, 'we're right in it now. Where's the liquor, Alf?'
The Factor, with true hospitality, was helping himself first. Then the bottle went round, the air became charged with smoke, conversation grew discursive.
'Quite a long time since I saw you last, Alf. Dave I'm meeting down in Selkirk pretty often. I reckon it's three years since we ran up.'