Dutch or some other language that no white man can understand. And
fight! You know Big Dave Cole, that's been with me for years?"

I assured him that I should never forget "Big Dave" Cole. I have known
him ever since he went to work for Bishop, and that was when I was a
boy. From that day he has been the terror of the neighbourhood, and I
have sometimes thought that even Bishop stood in fear of him.

"Wal," he said slowly and impressively, biting the end from a plug of
tobacco, "this here Wallace licked the life plumb out of Big Dave no
more than yesterday, an' Big Dave is that disgusted he has packed up and
quit me."

"What caused the trouble?" I asked.

"Big Dave called him an English dude, an' it seems that Wallace took
offense because he's Scotch," explained Bishop, "at least that's what
the other men who was there when it started said. I couldn't get a word
outer Wallace, who said he'd quit if I wanted him to, but I told him
that a man who could lick Big Dave and come out without a scratch had
the makings of a rattlin' good hired man, an' I raised his wages two
dollars a month an' gave him Big Dave's room, which is bigger than the
one he had. If he could milk, an' run a seeder, or a thresher, or stack
oats an' corn as well as he can fight, I would give him forty dollars a
month."

This incident was related to me several weeks ago, and I have made it a
point to study this chap when I have met him. I should say he is about
my age, twenty-five or so, and I must say that he is a good-looking
fellow. He is tall, dark of complexion, broad of shoulder and narrow of