"Quite so," Ware commented, glancing at something long which moved and vociferated inside the hotel window, "but don't you think, Nixon, that it's a bit loud for nothing at all?"
"Well," conceded Nixon, as they went up the steps, "when I say 'nothin' at all', Bill, I mean it's something special. You ain't got used to us Canadians yet, I see. In other words, the occasion of yon rumpus is Long Tom Mewha. He's gittin' tanked up."
"Yeow-e-wow-e-yippyhoo!" Mr. Mewha was remarking, his arm rib-crackingly about a less tall friend, as Nixon and Ware entered the hall of the Toddburn House, "Rip, slam, razzaberry jam! We don't care—do we, Joe. Whoa, you son of a moose, whoa!" This last as Joe coyly but vigorously endeavored to twist himself loose from the sociable arm.
"I'll turn you over my knee, an' spank you, Joe," Mr. Mewha reproved, pointing his words with a mighty slap that lifted Joe off his feet, "if you don't set still. We-e-ell—look who's with us!"
Long Tom—flinging away the unsteady Joe, who fetched up against the wall, eight feet away, with a window-rattling bang—turned to face Ware, who had just come through the hall door into the room.
"English!" he half-sung, "English, frum his scalp-lock to his moccasin-toes. Come here to me, English!"
Sir William's eye, gray, unwavering, infinitely friendly, met steadily the red-lidded glare of Long Tom Mewha—who emphasized his loud-toned invitation by rocking the upper part of his body from side to side, punctuating this movement with beckoning backward jerks of his head and crookings of a strong black-nailed forefinger.
"Come here to me," repeated Mr. Mewha, making a sound-box of his nostrils, "and do it sudden!"
He was a mighty man, in build, this Tom Mewha. Tough, long-sinewed, panther-shouldered, the seams of his buckskin coat straining under the twisting of a torso, muscle-flexed with the excitation of alcohol. He had a black moustache that swept below his chin on either side; a blunt nose skinned with frostbite; eyes aglow with virility and physical well-being; a forehead that just now was, from shaggy eyebrows to hair-roots, dotted and beaded with sweat. The incarnation of physical force; spurred to height of power by the liquor that had wakened every healthy artery to racing-pace: Long Tom could have taken any two of those who stood about him and without undue effort dashed their heads together. They all knew it, and stood back: all but Ware, the calm new-comer.