A Man of Two Countries

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed, and they are indicated with a mouse-hover and listed at the end of this book . All other inconsistencies are as in the original. A MAN of TWO COUNTRIES BY ALICE HARRIMAN Author of Songs o' the Sound, Chaperoning Adrienne through the Yellowstone, Songs o' the Olympics, etc. C. M. DOWLING 1910 THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY NEW YORK & SEATTLE Copyright 1910, by The Alice Harriman Company All rights reserved PRINTED BY The Premier Press NEW YORK U. S. A. TO THE READER Prior to the days of the cowboy and the range, the settler and irrigation, the State and the Province, an ebb and flow of Indians, traders, trappers, wolfers, buffalo-hunters, whiskey smugglers, missionaries, prospectors, United States soldiery and newly organized North West Mounted Police crossed and recrossed the international boundary between the American Northwest and what was then known as the "Whoop Up Country." This heterogeneous flotsam and jetsam held some of the material from which Montana evolved its later statehood. To one who came to know and to love the region after the surging tide had exterminated the buffalo and worse than exterminated the Indian,—to one who appreciates the limitless possibilities of the splendid Commonwealth of Montana on the one side and the great Province of Alberta on the other of that invisible line which now draws together instead of separating men of a common tongue, this period seems tremendously interesting. The "local color" has, perhaps, not been squeezed from too many tubes. Types stand out; never individuals. As types, therefore, the characters of this book weave their story as the shuttle of time, filled with the woof of hidden purpose and open deed, runs through the warp of their friendships and enmities. And with the less attractive strands the shifting harness of place and circumstance enmeshes a thread of Love's gold. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Twisting the Lion's Tail 15 II. The Girl on the Fontenelle 30 I. Under the Union Jack 47 II. Hate 58 III. The Hot Blood of Youth 72 IV. The Return to Fort Benton 88 I. Visitors from Helena 107 II. Charlie Blair's Sister 125 III. A Man of Two Countries 141 IV. The State Republican Convention 155 V. Despair 165 VI. Il Trovatore 180 VII. Debauching a Legislature 196 VIII. Danvers' Discouragement 211 IX. A Frontier Knock…