"Bridger's a good mountain man, all right," shortly agreed Lander, his own failures making the other's praise offensive. "But he has his weak spots. All about cooking fish and meat in boiling springs, hot water shooting into the air nearly a hundred feet! If that wasn't enough he insists the hot water spouts at certain times, just so long a time apart. Wonder who keeps watch of it and turns it off and on every so often. Then there's his cave of Indian war-paint. Wonder why any Indians bother to trade robes for our vermilion when they can have it for nothing at any time!"
"That is up in the Crow country. He had a chance to look about up there. He may forget and fill up the chinks with fancies, yet he must have seen something," wistfully defended Papa Clair, his white brows drawn down in bushy bewilderment. "So fine a man can not be a liar. When he told me about pickling enough buffalo in the Great Salt Lake to last a big band of trappers a whole season I could see there was sense to the scheme. But, my friend, I'm sorry he told about the cooking springs. Warm water perhaps; but to catch fish from a stream and throw them over and boil them—name of a pipe! Yet I try to believe him. The pickling of buffalo rang true but—there, there! He is a fine man. Let us not say more about it."
"Why hasn't some one else seen that wonderful lake, sixty miles long, hemmed in by mountains?" persisted Lander.
Papa shrugged his thin shoulders and with a malicious little grin said:
"I know one way to prove it is, or isn't. If I were younger I should do it by myself. That is to go there and look about. If I were younger—Well, well, Jim Bridger has seen so much that is wonderful he has no need to tell fairy stories. I swallowed his pickled buffalo. Why not? But behold! I feel depressed when he tells of the cooking-spring. The cave of war-paint. Some one must have left some paint there. But to say it grows—holy blue! Yet he saw something. Perhaps the lake wasn't sixty miles long. Perhaps the water was not scalding hot, just warm. Who knows? And yet when I was very young, even before the Missouris were exterminated, when the Otoes and Kansas tribes were something besides names, I heard strange stories from the up-river country—like fairy stories. But yet so wonderful a country must have wonderful secrets. Even in the few years left to me and my knives I believe I could uncover some strange things up there. Only the good God knows it all. And if I did they would call me, 'Papa Clair, the old liar.'"
"Not to your face, Papa," warmly declared Lander. "And I haven't thanked you yet for stopping that fellow from braining me. My head was asleep. I saw him lift the bottle over me and it seemed I was dreaming and couldn't move a peg. If some one had touched me, just to start me—but no one did. So, old friend, I owe you a life."
"Take good care of it. Keep it clean for the little friend. Wait!"
He beckoned to a boy and gave an order. The boy brought a bottle of French wine which Papa Clair lovingly decanted, and then proposed:
"To Her! We shall see different pictures as we drink; yet it is the same little woman to be found in every land where love is."
They drank standing, the ceremony attracting the attention of those near by. As they were resuming their seats the door opened with a crash, and Malcom Phinny, followed by several men, entered. He flapped his arms and crowed a challenge. River men stirred uneasily, anxious to cut his comb. Old mountain men lazily opened their eyes, sniffed in contempt, and went back to their sleep.
Phinny undoubtedly would have been quickly accommodated with more trouble than he could carry had not Tilton rushed from behind the bar and greeted him effusively, thus branding him as a friend and one who was protected by the warning, "Hands off."
"Coming man in the A. F. C," a trader at the table next to Clair's informed his companion, a long-haired free trapper.
"To —— with the A. F. C," growled the trapper. "He'll be a goin' man if he does any more ki-yi-yiing round here."
Papa Clair reached forward and tapped him lightly on the shoulder and sweetly asked:
"Is it not much better, m'sieu, for the old men of the village to correct their young men than for outsiders to take over the task?"
The trapper gave him a belligerent glance, recognized the wrinkled face, and fretfully snarled:
"I don't want none o' yer fight, Etienne Clair. If yer knife is lookin' for meat it can look farther."
Papa sighed despondently and settled back and toyed with his wine. Lander, who was watching Phinny, was scarcely conscious of this little by-play; and as he gazed his eyes glared wickedly. The loss of his position, the warning to keep away from the Pine Street home and Susette, were all attributed to the dark face up the line.
Phinny had been drinking enough to make him reckless. If not for Tilton's public avowal of favor a dozen hands would have pawed at him before he was ten feet inside the door. Again he flapped his arms and crowed. Beyond side glances no attention was paid him this time. Cocking his head insolently he strutted the length of the bar. Papa Clair heard Lander's boots scrape on the rough floor as he drew his feet under him.
Phinny now saw him and his dark eyes glittered vindictively. Taking a position at the end of the bar where he could keep his gaze on Lander, he rolled some coins on the slab and in a loud voice invited:
"Every one drink to my luck in gitting rid of a snake, a two-legged snake, that crawled out of my path and knows better than to return."
"Curse him!" hissed Lander, his hand dropping down to his boot and playing with the haft of his knife.
"Softly, softly. It all works out very sweetly," purred Papa Clair, his blue eyes beaming cheerily. "Patience. A well-lighted room, a company worshipful of good entertainment, and fair play in the person of Etienne Clair. But let it come naturally."
The liquor was speedily consumed, and Phinny, noting the strained expression on Lander's face, made more coins dance on the bar and bawled:
"It's my night. It's been my day. To-morrow will be my day. Once more with me, and drink hearty. This time to 'S'—the only woman west of the Mississippi."
"Base-born dog!" growled Papa Clair, his white beard bristling.
Lander rose to his feet and picked up his glass. Before he could hurl it Phinny threw his glass, striking Lander on the arm but doing no harm.
"You'll fight, you sneak!" roared Lander.
"Oh, my friend, my friend," groaned Papa Clair, seizing Lander's arm and preventing him from leaping at his enemy. "Such roughness! Such lack of wit! I am embarrassed!"
"You heard him!" choked Lander, trying to throw off the detaining hand.
"You've played into his hands. You've challenged him," sighed the old man, his long, slim fingers contracting like circlets of steel. "It could have been so pretty. Now it becomes a brawl. … But wait! He had no right to throw the glass and make you challenge him. You gave the first affront when you rose to hurl your glass. Hell's devils! Does he think to conduct this like a keelboat fight? I will straighten it out. I will make his friends see it in the true light. He must challenge you, and you shall have choice of weapons."
He rose with a knife held back of his arm and took a step toward Phinny, when Lander swept him behind him, hoarsely objecting:
"No, no. Let it finish as it began." Then to Phlnny: "I said you must fight. You have lost your tongue?"
"Yes, I'll fight," gritted Phinny. "Tilton will look after me. I only demand that we fight at once. Here."
"Not here," protested Tilton. "Gentlemen, please be still. I'll look after my friend. I suppose this young cock-a-lorum can scare up a friend."