Big Sandy McNaughton, a Canadian Highlander from Glengarry, rose up in wrath.
"Bill Keefe," said he with deliberate emphasis, "you'll just keep your dirty tongue off the minister; and as for your pay, it's little he sees of it, or any one else except Mike Slavin, when you's too dry to wait for some one to treat you, or perhaps Father Ryan, when the fear of hell-fire is on you."
The men stood amazed at Sandy's sudden anger and length of speech.
"Bon! Dat's good for you, my bully boy," said Baptiste, a wiry little French-Canadian, Sandy's sworn ally and devoted admirer ever since the day when the big Scotchman, under great provocation, had knocked him clean off the dump into the river and then jumped in for him.
It was not till afterward I learned the cause of Sandy's sudden wrath which urged him to such unwonted length of speech. It was not simply that the Presbyterian blood carried with it reverence for the minister, but that he had a vivid remembrance of how, only a month ago, the minister had got him out of Mike Slavin's saloon and out of the clutches of Keefe and Slavin and their gang of bloodsuckers.
Keefe started up with a curse. Baptiste sprang to Sandy's side, slapped him on the back, and called out:
"You keel him, I'll hit [eat] him up, me."
It looked as if there might be a fight, when a harsh voice said in a low, savage tone:
"Stop your row, you fools; settle it, if you want to, somewhere else."
I turned, and was amazed to see old man Nelson, who was very seldom moved to speech.