rkey grumbled. "Now you've got all our things mixed
up maybe you'll be satisfied."

Jean appealed to Angus, who agreed with Turkey. Whereat Jean sniffed and
left them to their opinions.

Angus was a little apprehensive of his first meeting Blake French, but
to his relief the latter chose to ignore what had occurred. Rather to
his surprise Kathleen rode over to call on Jean, and the two girls
struck up a certain friendship. Thus Angus saw more of Kathleen and her
people than he had ever done before, including the head of the family,
Godfrey French himself.

Godfrey French, though well on in years, was still erect and spare. He
had a cold, blue eye, much like Gavin's, but now a trifle weary, and a
slightly bent cynical mouth beneath a white moustach. He was invariably
courteous and dignified, and whatever might be said of his sons, there
was no doubt that the father possessed the ingrained manner of a
gentleman. Yet Angus did not like him, and he thought that old French
had little or no use for him. Somehow, French put him in mind of a
gray-muzzled old fox.

One day in mid-summer as Angus sat in the shade of the workshop mending
a broken harness, old Paul Sam on his single-footing pony drew up at the
door.

"'Al-lo!" he greeted.

"Hello, Paul Sam," Angus returned. "You feel skookum to-day?"

"Skookum, me," the Indian replied. "Skookum, you?"

"Skookum, me," Angus told him.

The old man got off his pony, sat down on an empty box, and drew out an
old buckskin, bead-worked fire-bag. From this he produced a stone pipe
bowl and a reed stem. Fitting the two together he filled the bowl and
smoked.

This, Angus knew, was diplomacy. Whatever the Indian had come for, not a
word concerning it would he say till he had had his smoke. Then it would
probably be unimportant. So Angus waited in silence, and Paul Sam smoked
in silence. Finally the latter tapped out and unjointed his pipe and put
it away in his fire-bag.

"Me got cooley kuitan," he announced.

"Cooley" is apparently a corruption of the French word "courir," to run.
"Kuitan" is a horse. Hence a "cooley kuitan" in Chinook signifies a race
horse.

Angus shook his head. He knew very well what Sam Paul intended doing
with this race horse. There was a local race meet each year, in
connection with the local fair. The race meet outsized the fair, dwarfed
it in interest. It drew tin horns and sure-thing gamblers as fresh meat
draws flies. These gentry ran various g