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Transcriber's note


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A MAN OF TWO COUNTRIES




   A MAN _of_ TWO
   COUNTRIES

   BY
   ALICE HARRIMAN

   Author of SONGS O' THE SOUND, CHAPERONING ADRIENNE
   THROUGH THE YELLOWSTONE, SONGS O'
   THE OLYMPICS, etc.

   Chapter Headings by
   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.




BOOK I. THE RIVER

BOOK II. THE PRAIRIE

BOOK III. THE STATE




TABLE OF CONTENTS


   BOOK I

   I.    Twisting the Lion's Tail              15

   II.   The Girl on the Fontenelle            30


   BOOK II

   I.    Under the Union Jack                  47

   II.   Hate                                  58

   III.  The Hot Blood of Youth                72

   IV.   The Return to Fort Benton             88


   BOOK III

   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                     219

   X.    Wheels Within Wheels                 226

   XI.   The Chinese Legend                   241

   XII.  Recognition                          251

   XIII. The Lobbyist                         257

   XIV.  The Keystone                         268

   XV.   An Unpremeditated Speech             281

   XVI. The Election                          291

[Illustration]




BOOK I


_THE RIVER_

   _"I beheld the westward marches
     Of the... nations,
     Restless, struggling, toiling, striving."_
                                  --_Longfellow_

[Illustration]




Chapter I

Twisting the Lion's Tail


Philip Danvers, heading a small party of horsemen, galloped around the
corner of a warehouse and pulled up on the levee at Bismarck as the mate
of the _Far West_ bellowed, "Let 'er go!"

"Hold on!" he shouted, leaping from his mount.

"Why in blazes!" The mate's impatience flared luridly as he ordered the
gang-plank replaced. His heat ignited the smouldering resentment of the
passengers, and they, too, exploded.

"We're loaded to the guards now!" yelled one.

"Yeh can't come aboard!" threatened another.

"Haven't yeh got a full passenger list a'ready, Captain?" demanded a
blustering, heavy-set man with beetling eyebrows, as he pushed himself
angrily through the crowding men to the deck-rail.

"Can't help it if I have, Burroughs," retorted the autocrat of the
river-boat.