Tilton's liquor-flushed face became pallid. Fragments of strange tales concerning Papa Clair's wild youth flocked through the man's mind—wicked old stories of the Gulf, when men made their own laws, whispers of lonely lagoons that were visited only by piratical craft.
"I meant I reckined it might be difficult for him to reach his friends in time to fight at once. No harm was meant. As you represent him s'pose we talk it over. Mebbe we can fix it up without any fighting."
"Then you don't stand for me," cried Phinny, whisky-courageous, and he walked to the upper end of the bar.
"Oh, you shall have your satisfy, young rooster," sneered Papa Clair, in nowise contented with Tilton's evasion of a quarrel.
Tilton waved the crowd back and talked earnestly to Papa who heard him sullenly.
"I agree," shortly said Papa as the saloon-keeper finished. "It is poor sport when so much better could be had for the asking."
With that he returned to Lander, twisting his long mustaches and trembling with anger.
"We are to go over to Bloody Island," he rapped out.
"Good!"
"As the challenged person he chooses pistols. Sacrilege!" snapped Papa.
"I do not care. Let it be pistols. Only let's go to business."
"My friend, be patient. You shall soon face him. It is not because I fear for you with pistols that I grieve. It is because you blundered and played into their hands. When all was so prettily staged for clean knife-play! Bah! Honor is more easily satisfied these days. But there were times when one did not have to wait a year to see the knife-fight. Well, well. Let us get along with it. Perhaps some time we shall deserve better. We go at once. The moon is up. It will be light enough to exchange shots."
Chapter III THE DUEL
IT LACKED an hour of midnight when Jim Bridger locked the Washington Avenue store and walked down to the river-front. He was about to leave the city for another year in the mountains, and there was no guarantee he would ever return. There were many forgotten graves along the Missouri and its tributaries. Bridger meditated calmly on the possible vicissitudes of the season ahead, and knew that for a certain percentage of his mountain men this would be the last trip to the Rockies.
He had halted close to the river and found himself staring through the soft moonlight at Bloody Island. The island, famous as a dueling-ground for the hot spirits of the time, who would not be satisfied with anything short of a rival's blood, always fascinated him. As a boy he knew its history. Often he had wandered over it and paused to rest in the shade of the huge cottonwood which had stood there a sturdy tree long before St. Charles, Petite Côte, began life as the first settlement on the Missouri, or two years before St. Louis had its beginning.
Bridger was thirteen years old and supporting himself and his sister with his ferry-boat when Thomas H. Benton, "Old Bullion," and Charles Lucas fought two duels on the island, Lucas being killed. Six years later Joshua Barton, a brother of the first United States Senator from Missouri, was killed by Thomas Rector under the cottonwood. And could he have read the future for the period of but four months he would have known that Major Thomas Biddle, paymaster of the United States Army, and Congressman Spencer Pettis were to kill each other, the range being but five feet.
As he was recalling the historic encounters, and many others of lesser notoriety, he was disturbed by the dipping of paddles and the appearance of a long dugout making for the island. His spell vanished and he would have left the levee had he not observed that the canoe was filled with men. The hour, the number of men in the twenty-five footer, told him that only one errand could call them to Bloody Island. He stayed his steps and stared after them curious to witness the finale of the affair. A second canoe shot into the moonlight, but this was smaller than the other and seemed to contain but two men. From the forward canoe a deep voice bawled:
"American Fur ag'in' th' world!"
This sentiment was loudly cheered. Bridger, who was gathering himself to give the autocratic A. F. C. the fight of its life, walked back to the water's edge and frowned thoughtfully as he watched the progress of the second craft.
"There's going to be a fight. First canoe's filled plumb full of A. F. C. men. Them two most likely are Opposition men. They oughter have some one sorter to look after them. I'd hate to be the only stranger on the island in a crowd of A. F. C. men if any blood was to be spilled. I ain't got the time but I reckon I'll drop over an' just see how it works out."
Searching up and down the levee he soon found a small dugout and with an improvised paddle made for the end of the island.
Bridger was now beginning to be recognized as the foremost mountain man of his time. He had been schooled by General Ashley, and had trapped and explored every tributary of the Platte and Yellowstone with such men as Lucien B. Maxwell, Carson, and Jim Baker. He was old in the ways of the plains and mountains before he became one of the heads of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He had been present at the attack on the villages of the treacherous Aricaras in the spring of 1823, the first campaign against trans-Mississippi Indians conducted by a United States army, when Ashley and his veterans joined forces with General Atkinson and his "Missouri Legion." The A. F. C. would gladly buy his services, being especially troubled and incensed because he followed his old chief's example of taking trappers to the mountains without depending upon the good-will of the natives, or on settled trading-posts. The powerful organization was now prepared to fight him at his own game by sending companies of men to dog his steps and compete with him at every turn; and in doing this the A. F. C. admitted his worth as a trader and advertised their fear of him as an opponent.
Bridger this night was on the eve of a battle royal for beaver, but he had no thought except for the fight between unknown men on Bloody Island. The sentiment from the leading canoe, revealing the men were A. F. C. sympathizers, made him keen to follow and see that the minority received fair play. Landing at the nose of the island he pulled up his canoe. Then with a mastery of woodcraft that would have made an Indian jealous he threaded his way toward the opening where the duels were always fought. Before he reached the spot he caught the sound of voices, one in particular being raised most blatantly.
"That would be Tilton," he muttered. "Owned by the A. F. C. body an' soul, if he happens to have any such thing."
"I'm running this show!" Tilton shouted as Bridger reached the end of the bush growth and stood unobserved in the shadows and watched the moon-lighted scene.
"A thousand pardons, m'sieu," remonstrated a soft voice. "But behold, you will run on to my knife if you fail in courtesy to M'sieu Lander."
"The devil! Young Lander, who wanted a job with me!" muttered Bridger. "Wouldn't go to the mountains along of leaving his girl. Now he takes a chance on losing his life—an' all of a pleasant evening. He must have some spirit. Mebbe I misjudged him."
"Mister Phinny, as th' challenged party, has said pistols," began Tilton.
"To be sure. Behold, it is his right," broke in Papa Clair. "But the distance and the positions are not for you to name. We will toss a coin for position, and we will decide between us how far apart they shall stand."
"Oh, let's have it over with," grumbled Lander. "Give me a pistol and stand the skunk before me. If he isn't near enough I'll go after him."
"You'll find me near enough to put a ball through your heart, or my name ain't Malcom Phinny," jeered the other principal.
"Phinny?"