There is little inherently bad about the cowboy. Normally he is fairer, more gallant and honest than the ruck of Westerners who have gone West with their eyes blinded by dollars. Often a shocking cold-bloodedness marks his revenge or anger, but it is usually frank and fair, according to his lights, a development of the hard life he lives.
Out there on the prairie no house is locked. There, where the nearest neighbour may be hours of hard riding distant, no decent woman need be afraid.
But lope the same gallant, honest cowboys into town in a group of a fine evening, and it is best to be where they aren't. To them town is the visible epitome of all they contemn: luxury, inexperience, flaccidity, nervousness; the source of that impending peril, the farmer. Town has its uses, the admissible ones being the amusement and accommodation of visiting ranchers and their outfits.
And one of the readiest amusements, and usually the cheapest, is impressing the townsman.
Dakota Fraley and his gang were peculiarly trained to enjoy this form of amusement. Over in Montana, where they came from, the law was less confining—a mere matter of solitary sheriffs, probably recruited from among themselves after the excitement of punching palled. This side of the border it was more relentless, depending upon straight-shooting, fearless, hardriding, uniformed officials who scorned the assistance of posses and were only the human representatives of an overwhelming force that could not be stayed by a thousand rifles or reputations. To have a chance to break loose in such a tight-laced country was like rolling out a pent-up oath when the parson's back is turned.
Dakota and his mates hated Canada, as a burglar hates an electric alarm, because a flesh-and-blood gunman hadn't a chance. They hated the townsman especially because of his insulting confidence in the protection of the law.
Most of all they hated the Mounted Police.
When the last steer had lumbered up the gangway and been locked in the last car, Dakota and his companions lingered on the trail to town. They knew their unpopularity with the other outfits and resented it. The Mounted Police knew, in the course of their intimate investigations into the past of everyone who ever came West, that this feeling was no novelty to Dakota's comrades. They were almost as unpopular in their own country. Indeed, under adequate pressure Inspector Barker might have told an interesting story of the reason for Dakota's change of climate.
On South Railway Street the H-Lazy Z outfit pulled up. Here were the most bars, and since these were crowded they split into small groups and divided their patronage. The Royal, the Commercial, the European, the Cosmopolitan were treated impartially, for they all served equally potent liquid. Disregardful of toes and elbows and prior rights, they dived into the crowds and for fifteen minutes kept the perspiring dope-slingers busy on recklessly juggled concoctions.
From Inspector Barker's window across the tracks four Mounted Policemen sighed; they read the story of the night ahead, without being within sight of the labels on the bottles.