The arrival at Yelm Prairie produced an excitement equal to that of a circus, and our friends had hardly alighted from the train before they were surrounded by a clamorous throng of would-be guides, packers, teamsters, owners of saddle-animals or pack-ponies, and a score of others, who were loud in declaring that without their services the expedition would surely come to grief.
In vain did the bewildered Frenchman storm and rave, and stamp his feet and gesticulate. Not one word that he said could be understood by the crowd, who, in their efforts to attract his attention, only shouted the louder and pressed about him more closely. Finally the poor man, turning to Alaric and saying, "Do what you will. Everything I leave to you," clapped his hands to his ears, broke through the uproarious throng, and started on a run for the open prairie.
"He leaves everything to us," said Alaric, who was almost as bewildered by the clamor and novelty of the situation as was M. Filbert himself.
"Good enough!" cried Bonny. "Now we will be able to do something. I take it that on this cruise you are first mate and I am second. So if you'll just give the word to go ahead, I'll settle the business in a hurry."
"I only wish you would," returned Alaric, "for it looks as though we were going to be mobbed."
Armed with this authority, Bonny sprang on a packing-case that lifted him well above his surroundings, and shouted: "Fellow-citizens!"
Instantly there came a hush of curious expectancy.
"I reckon all you men are looking for a job?"
"That's about the size of it," answered several voices.
"Very well; I'll give you one that'll prove just about the biggest contract ever let out in Yelm Prairie. It is to shut your mouths and keep quiet."
Here the speaker was greeted by angry murmurs and cries of "None of yer chaff, young feller!" "What are you giving us?" and the like.
Nothing daunted, Bonny continued: "I'm not fooling. I'm in dead earnest. What we are after is quiet, and the prince out there, whom you have scared away with your racket, is so bound to have it that he's willing to pay handsomely for it. He's got the money, too, and don't you forget it. He wants to hire several guides and packers, also a lot of saddle-horses and ponies, but a noisy, loud-talking chap he can't abide, and won't have round. He has left the whole business to my partner here and me to settle, seeing that we are his interpreters, and we are going to do it the way he pays us to do it and wants it done. So, according to the rule we've laid down in all our travellings and mountain-climbings up to date, the man who speaks last will be hired first, and the fellow who makes the most noise won't be given any show at all. Sabe? As an example, we want a team to take our dunnage to the river, and I'm going to give the job to that fellow sitting in the wagon, who hasn't so far spoken a word."