"What 'd you tell us?" repeated the man with the scarred face, in doubt, as Burroughs moved away and Danvers turned toward the prow of the boat staring, with eyes that saw not, into the western unknown. "Didn't I tell you that Bob would do the right thing?" asked the charitable surgeon impatiently, unconscious that he had voiced no such sentiment. The three looked at the river and at the long lances of light streaming from the East, then at the English youth, abstracted, aloof. "Perhaps yeh did," assented Joe, easily. "But I know one thing. It'll stick in Bob's crop that he craw-fished----." A nod indicated his meaning. "Somehow Danvers strikes me as a stuck-up Britisher." "A man shouldn't be damned for his look or his manner," exploded the doctor, although he recognized the truth of the criticism. "He's young and self-conscious. A year or two in the Whoop Up Country will season him and be the making of him." "He'll not always stay in the Whoop Up Country," Charlie said, presciently. "I wish I could do something for him," he added. "He'll make his mark--somehow--somewhere." "Prophesying, eh?" smiled the doctor. "All right; we'll see." The light-draft, flat-bottomed _Far West_ made slow progress. The dead and broken snags, the "sawyers" of river parlance, fast in the sand-bars, seemed waiting to impale the steamboat. The lead-man called unceasingly from his position. One bluff yielded to another, a flat succeeded to a grove where wild roses burst into riotous bloom, and over all lay the enchantment of the gay, palpitant, young summer. The journey was monotonous until, with a bend of the river, they sighted another steamer, the _Fontenelle_, stuck fast on Spread Eagle Bar--the worst bar of the Missouri. Among the passengers at the rail Philip Danvers saw--could it be? a woman--a white woman, young and beautiful. What could be her mission in that far country which seemed so vast to the young Englishman that each day's journey put years of civilization behind him? The girl on the _Fontenelle_ was evidently enjoying the situation, and Danvers discovered at once that she was holding court on her own boat as well as commanding tribute from the _Far West_. The men about him stared eagerly at the slender, imperious figure, while Burroughs procured a glass from the mate and feasted his eyes. "I'm goin' to see her at closer range," he declared, and soon had persuaded the captain to let him have a rowboat. Philip and Latimer, by this time good friends, watched the trader go on board and disappear into the cabin. "The nerve of that man amazes me!" declared Latimer. "What can he be thinking of?" "Of the girl, and the first chance at Fort Benton!" answered the doctor, who joined the two in time to catch the remark. "If you'd known Bob Burroughs as long as I have at Fort Benton, you wouldn't be surprised at anything. He's determined to win, wherever you put him, and he'll make money easy enough."