Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/277

 Here was a greater caste distinction than Lander would have experienced in any household in St. Louis. The men were seated according to the rank of their occupation, and Susette's lover found himself decidedly below the salt and in the company of several harum-scarum youngsters going through their probation.

McKenzie was dressed in the St. Louis mode, and there was nothing in his carefully groomed and well-garbed appearance that could suggest the eighteen hundred miles between him and a civilized table. It would be several years before there would be even a rough settlement of whites above Independence.

What made an instant appeal to Lander and caused him to forget he was treated as being at par with the least of the staff was sight of the food. There were platters heaped high with tender, fat buffalo-meat. There were dishes of game birds and plenty of fresh butter, cream and milk.

However, and this was the only suggestion of stinting, there were only two biscuits at a plate. For although Fort Union might for a time run its own distillery in defiance of the law its bread ration remained something of a problem. To add