"Well, I'll be blanked!" said one of the men. "Wouldn't that pall you!"
"Blank cantankerous cuss!" said the cowboy. "Never a `thank you' for gittin' half killed in place of his kid."
Perault walked up to Shock, and offering his hand, said in a voice husky and broken, "Dat's two for you dis even'—me an' dat leele feller. For me—I can't spik my heart," smiting himself on the breast, "but my heart—dat's your own now, by gar!" He wrung Shock's hand in both of his and turned quickly away. But before he had taken many steps he returned, saying, "Come on wit me! I feex up your head." And without further words Shock and Perault passed into the Stopping Place.
The men looked at each other in silence for a time, then the cowboy said with unusual emphasis, "Boys, he's white! He's blanked white!"
X
THE TURF MEET
The great brown shadows of the rolling hills had quite filled the hollows between and were slowly climbing up the western slope of every undulation when Shock reached the lip of the broad river bed in which lay, the little fort town.
The white clump of buildings standing by themselves he knew to be the barracks of the North-West Mounted Police. The flag floating above showed that, as well as the air of military neatness about them.
The town straggled along two intersecting streets, and then frayed out over the flats in isolated and dejected-looking shacks. The more imposing building on the main street Shock guessed were the hotels and stores. One of the latter he recognised from its flag as that of the ancient and honourable Hudson's Bay Company. On a back street here and there stood a house surrounded by a garden and scrubby trees, a pathetic attempt to reproduce in this treeless country what in other lands had been fondly called home.