“Oh, by the way, what’s your name?”
He absently fished in his vest pocket, and this action provoked a fresh gale of laughter from the highly edified hands, in which the girl heartily joined. At the laughter, he looked up, slightly whistled, and said in his friendly way:
“Cheerio!”
“Cheerio!” repeated the girl. “Some name. Boys, allow me—Cheerio, Duke of the O Bar O. Escort his grace to the dining-car, and mind you treat him gentle. And say, boys—” she called after them, “doll him up in O Bar O duds. Let’s see what he looks like in reglar clothes.”
Shoved along by the men, “his grace” was pushed and hustled into the cook-car. Here the odour of the hot food, and the rich soup being slapped into each bowl along the line of plates, almost caused the hungry Englishman to faint. Nevertheless, he kept what he would have termed “stiff upper lip,” and as the Chinaman passed down between the long bench tables, and filled the bowl before the newcomer, Cheerio, as he was henceforward to be known, controlled the famished longing to fall to upon that thick, delicious soup, and, smiling instead, turned to the man on either side of him, with a cigarette case in his hand:
“Have one, old man, do. P-pretty g-good stuff! Got them in France, you know. Believe I’ll have one myself before starting in, you know. Topping—what?”
CHAPTER III
P. D. McPherson, or “P. D.” as he was better known throughout the ranching country, owner of the O Bar O, was noted for his eccentricities, his scientific experiments with stock and grain, and for the variety and quality of his vocabulary of “cusses.”
An ex-professor of an Agricultural College, he had come to Alberta in the early days, before the trails were blazed. While the railroads were beginning to survey the new country, he had established himself in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Beginning with a few head of cattle imported from the East, P. D. had built up his herd until it was famous throughout the cattle world. His experiments in crossing pure-bred grades of cattle in an attempt to produce an animal that would give both the beef of the Hereford and the butterfat and cream of the Holstein, had been followed with unabated interest.