Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 540 pages of information about Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains.

Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 540 pages of information about Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains.

I told him I thought I could, and commenced clearing up my throat, at which the entire crowd smiled above a whisper; but I surprised the crowd by starting in and singing the song just as I heard the young lady sing it the evening before.  Every man in the crowd took off his hat, and they gave me three cheers.

On arriving at Bent’s Fort we learned that furs were high, and notwithstanding our catch was light, Uncle Kit did fairly well.

He sold his furs again to Col.  Bent and Mr. Roubidoux.

After Uncle Kit had settled up with all the other boys, he called me into the tent and said: 

“Willie, I have settled with all the men now but you; how much am I owing you?”

Up to this time I had never received any wages from Uncle Kit, nor had I expected any, for I did not think that I had done enough for him to pay for my raising.  I had always felt under obligations to him for picking me up when I was without a home and almost penniless, and had, as I considered made a man of me.

Uncle Kit told me that I was old enough now to do a man’s work, and that I was able to fill a man’s place in every respect.  He took his purse from his pocket, counted me out one hundred and fifty dollars in gold; and not until then had I known that he had ordered me a fifty dollar suit of buckskin made at Taos, the fall before; and not until then had he told me that he was to be married on the tenth of July, and wanted Johnnie West and I to be there without fail.  I asked him who he was going to be married to.  He said her name was Rosita Cavirovious.  She was a Mexican girl who lived in Taos.  I did not know the lady but was acquainted with some of her brothers.  I told Uncle Kit that I would surely be there.

Uncle Kit and Jim Beckwith now started for Taos, and Johnnie West and I began making preparations to start in hunting for Col.  Bent and Mr. Roubidoux, as per contract nearly one year before.

Col.  Bent said that he was very glad that we were ready to start in hunting, as they had been out of fresh meat at least half of the time that spring.

In that country bacon was high, being worth from twenty-five to thirty cents per pound, and early in the spring higher even than that.

This spring, as usual, there were some thirty trappers congregated at Bent’s Fort, apparently to eat and drink up what money they had earned during the winter.

CHAPTER IX.

Marriage of Kit Carson.—­The wedding feast.—­Providing buffalo meat, in the original package, for the boarding-house at Bent’s fort.

Johnnie West and I started with a saddle-horse each and four pack-mules for a buffalo hunt; I still riding Croppy, the pony Uncle Kit had given me at St. Louis, but he was getting old and somewhat stiffened up in his shoulders.

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Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.