Save the broad, kindly Slavic faces, the only Russian thing I saw about the place was a samovar, and I sipped a mug of tea from this peacefully purring old friend while I endeavoured to find out whether any of them knew anything of the whereabouts of a certain Montana metropolis called Billings. They appeared to be trying to assure me that they had heard of such a place, and there also seemed to be some unanimity on the score of its being somewhere down river. But just how far it was by river they couldn't get together on, and even if they had had any real knowledge of the course of the stream they appeared not to have the language to express it. Certainly an estimate in versts wasn't going to help a lot. As I thanked them and turned to go the whole family trooped down to the landing to see me off. Pointing eastward to the low line of a distant bluff one of the boys delivered himself of a laconic "Dam—lookout!" I assured him I had already been warned of the dam of the local power company, and would be keeping just that kind of a good lookout for it. That gave them their cue. They were all ejaculating or registering "Dam—good—lookout!" as the current bore me away into the deepening dusk.
That last half-hour's run was an intensely trying one, though I was never in serious trouble any of the time. I kept going wrong on channels every few minutes, with the result that I found every now and then that the Yellowstone had gone off and left me on a streak of wet rocks and gravel. With a heavy boat I should have been marooned for the night a dozen times, but it was never very difficult to drag my little tin shallop on to where there was enough water trickling to lead the way back to the main channel. When an increasing frequency of lights indicated I was nearing the outskirts of a town I found the current to be running so swiftly along what appeared to be a levee on the left bank that a landing was rather too precarious to risk in the dark. I was skirting the bank for a favourable eddy when the rounding of a densely wooded bend brought me out into a stretch of slackening water directly above the dam. The long-striven-for bluff appeared to rise abruptly from the water on my right, while on my left there was a stretch of gravel bar running back to a strip of trees and the levee.
The roar of the dam was not the less impressive after bouncing off the bluff on its way to my ears, and I took no more time than was necessary to pull in and land upon the white stretch of beach. As rain was still threatening I decided to seek the town for shelter. Dragging the skiff well above high-water mark, I stacked my stuff in it, shouldered my packsack and climbed the levee. After an hour's bootless wanderings in the sloughs beyond I came back and followed the levee a half mile down-stream to the power-house below the dam. And so to town.
Suppering at a convenient lunch-counter, I drank copiously of coffee from the steaming urn at my elbow. Now of all of the drinks of the ancient and modern world that I have known, lunch-counter coffee has always proved the most inebriating. That was why I was impelled to fare forth to the prizefight bulletin boards seeking low companionship, and that must have been why I put the French on "Carpenter," and why I tried to affect vulgar ringside jargon.
"Kar-pon-tee-ayh K. O.-ed, huh?" I grunted familiarly, lounging up to a knot of local sports discussing pugilistic esoterics before the newspaper window. For an instant the jabbering ceased—just long enough for the half dozen technical experts to sweep my mud-spattered khaki with scathing glances, snort and get under way again. Only one of them was polite enough to say: "No savee Crow talkee," adding to a companion: "Indian policeman—Crow Reservation—funny don't talk 'Merican."
That certainly was not a good start. On the contrary, indeed, it was a perfectly rotten one. Which fact only makes me more proud of the resiliency of spirit I showed in coming right back and assuring them that I was not a Crow Indian, that I did talk 'Merican, and that I had been one of Jack Dempsey's first sparring partners. There was coffee-inspired artistry, too, in the inconsequentiality with which I added: "Gave Jack the K. O. once myself. Sort of a flivver ... but knocked him cold just the same."
Dear little old Strawberry Lady, didn't I swear I wouldn't forget the lesson you taught me? That made them take notice of course. For an instant they hung in the balance, searching my scarred and battered visage with awed, troubled eyes. Then dawning wonder replaced doubt in their faces, and they fell—my way. "Darn'd if you don't look the part," said one. "My name's Allstein—in hardware line—Shake!" And then they all introduced themselves like that—each with his name and line. I forget just what my name was, but it must have been something like "Spud" Gallagher. Sparring partners never vary greatly from that model of nomenclature.
Finally we retired to a pool-room, where I reminisced to an ever augmenting audience. Alas! and yet Alack-a-day! If it had only been the good old cow-town Billings of those delectable baseball days of twenty years ago, what wouldn't have been mine that night! But it was not bad as it was; not bad at all. I forget just where we were when dawn came, but I do remember I was in the act of showing my punch-damaged hands for the hundredth time when I looked up and saw that a window was growing a glimmering square with the light of the coming day. That was my cue, of course. Excusing myself on some pretext, I slipped out the back way, slunk through an alley, and finally to the street which leads past the sugar refinery down to the power-house and the river. For many days after that I felt less envious of good old Haroun al Raschid.