He sang it in the Spanish, a tongue which no other man here understood. Yet they must all guess the meaning of the words. They were love words, tenderly lilted. And they were being sung to Ernestine Dumont. There was a little smile upon young Ramon's lips, a hint of gay laughter in his voice and in his soft eyes a deal of love making. Kootanie George scowled, Ernestine twirled her glass in her fingers, one or two men laughed.
When he had done Ramon Garcia swept his fingers across the strings in a sort of mournful regret. Then, when there was a sudden clapping of hands, he bowed, smiled and sang again, this time putting the words of his little song, the same song, into English:
"The perfume of roses, of little red roses;
(Thou art a rose, oh, so sweet, corazón!) The laugh of the water who falls in the fountain; (Thou art the fountain of love, corazón!) The brightness of stars, of little stars golden; (Estrella de mi vida! My little life star!) The shine of the moon through the magnolia tree; I am so sad till thou come, mi amor! Dios! It is sweet to be young and to love! More sweet than wine … to be young and to love!"
In the clapping of hands which broke out when he had done Ernestine's was to be heard above Kootanie George's grunt of disgust.
"No man talk, that," he snorted, careless of who heard. "Dam' slush."
"Your deal, Koot," laughed Blunt Rand, the American trapper from the headwaters of the Little MacLeod. "Don't let the Mexican gent spoil your play that-away. Deal 'em up, why don't you?"
Kootanie George glared at Rand and gathered in the cards. He understood as did Ernestine and the others at the table the gibe which lay under Rand's words. The American's fancies, too, had run toward Ernestine Dumont not so long ago, and she had not deigned to take notice of him after the coming of Kootanie.
"Mexican gent, huh?" said George slowly. "If you mean Greaser why don't you say Greaser?"
Ramon Garcia had again approached the table. He stopped suddenly as George's snarl came to him, and his white teeth showed for a quick flash under his lifted lip. Then, his eyes smiling darkly, he came on again, bending intimately over Ernestine's chair.
"They are dancing over there," he said softly. "Will you dance with me, señorita?"
George merely looked at them sidewise. Ernestine glanced up sharply and for a moment indecision stood easily readable in her eyes. Then she shook her head.
"Not now," she said quietly. "Maybe after a while. I don't know. Anyway not now."
"Gracias, señorita." He thanked her quite as though she had taken his proffered arm. And turning away he went back to the game of dice and his wine glass. Kootanie laughed.
"Better look out for him, Koot," grinned Blunt Rand. "Them kind carry cold steel sharp on both edges. They get it between your shoulder blades and then twist it. It's awful uncomfortable."
Rand had drunk his share of toasts to the eternal joy of the Marquettes and the drinking had given to his tongue a wee bit of recklessness, to his heart a little venom. Out of a clear sky, his words falling crisply through the little silence, he demanded of no one in particular and in all seeming innocence:
"What's happened to No-luck Drennen? I ain't seen him here of late."
Kootanie George turned his head slowly and stared at him. Rand was fingering his cards, his eyes hastily busied with their corners. George turned from him to Ernestine. She bit her lips and a spurt of red leaped up into her cheeks. Her eyes met his a moment, steely and hard. Then they went to Blunt Rand, as bright and hateful as twin daggers.
The man upon Rand's right started to laugh. He altered his mind as Kootanie George's eyes turned slowly upon him and changed the laugh to a cough behind his hand. Nobody offered to answer the question; it was accepted as one of those utterances put into the form of an interrogation merely for rhetorical reasons and requiring no reply. For it was common talk through the camps that No-luck Drennen had done the impossible and gotten blood from a turnip; in other words that he had drawn love out of the heart of Ernestine Dumont. And it was known that the miracle had been a twin wonder in that Drennen had refused to see and when he had at last seen had refused to accept. Ernestine's love had been like Ernestine herself, reckless. And, yes, Drennen had laughed at her. He had told her brutally that he had no more use for a woman in his life than he had for a cat. Certainly not for a woman like her. His words had been given after Drennen's fashion; like a slap in the face. All this had been less than a year ago.
Elated at the success with which his words had met, Blunt Rand laughed. Again Kootanie George looked at him steadily.
"What are you lookin' for Drennen for?" he asked quietly.
"Oh, nothin'," rejoined the other lightly. "Only when I come through Little Smoky the other day an ol' flame of his asked about him. The Fire Bird they call her. Know her?"
Ernestine Dumont's face grew a shade redder in its mortification even while she knew that the man was lying to tease her. Then she sat back with a little gasp and even slow moving Kootanie George turned quickly as a heavy voice called from the door:
"You're a liar, Blunt Rand."
It was No-luck Drennen just come in and standing now, his hat far back upon his head, his hands upon his hips, staring across the room at Blunt Rand.
CHAPTER III
THE MAN UNDER THE CLOAK
Dave Drennen was a big man, no man here so big save Kootanie George alone, who was two inches the taller and fully thirty pounds the heavier. The Canadian stood four inches better than six feet in his squat, low-heeled boots and must turn sideways to get his massive shoulders through most doors hereabouts. Unlike most very tall men George carried himself straight, his enormous chest thrust forward.
Drennen was younger by half a dozen years, slenderer, of cleaner build. Any man at Père Marquette's would have emptied his pockets that night to witness a fight between the two. Men as a rule liked Kootanie George, slow moving, slow spoken, heavily good humoured. And as an even more unbroken rule they disliked Dave Drennen. Throughout the far places of the great northwest into which of recent years he had fitted restlessly he was known as a man at once too silent and too quarrelsome. He trod his own trail alone. Other men had "pardners"; Drennen was no man's friend. He was hard and he was bitter. Not yet at the end of his first score and ten, his mouth had grown set in stern, harsh lines, his heavy brows had acquired the habit of bunching ominously over eyes in which was the glint of steel. He was a man whose smile was unpleasant, whose laugh could be as ugly as many a man's curse.
It looked like a quarrel between No-luck Drennen and Blunt Rand. And yet the men who ceased their playing at the snap of his voice forgot Rand and hungered for trouble between Drennen and Kootanie George. Rand had been measured long ago and didn't count. He blabbed big words when he was drunk and whined when a man struck him. He would swallow his words now and swallow with them No-luck Drennen's vicious "You're a liar, Blunt Rand." Even if Drennen slapped his face he would merely crawl away like a little bug, spitting venom.
Drennen was standing ten feet from him and made no move to draw closer.
"Did you hear me, Rand?" he demanded sharply.
"I heard you," grumbled the trapper. "What's eatin' you, Dave, anyway?"
"Tell them you lied."
Rand flushed, and inspired by his liquor a sudden, unusual stubbornness sprang up in his eyes. He heard Ernestine