“An’ out there’s the purtiest spot west o’ the Rockies, My valley is ever’thing a man er a womern can ask or want.  And me, I’m a permanent man in these yere parts.  It’s me, Jim Bridger, that fust diskivered the Great Salt Lake.  It’s me, Jim Bridger, fust went through Colter’s Hell up in the Yellowstone.  Ain’t a foot o’ the Rockies I don’t know.  I eena-most built the Rocky Mountains, me.”  He spread out his hands.  “And I’ve got to be eena’most all Injun myself.”

“I suppose.”  The girl’s light laugh cut him.

“But never so much as not to rever’nce the white woman, Miss Molly. 
Ye’re all like angels to us wild men out yere.  We—­we never have forgot. 
And so I give ye this, the fust gold from Californy.  There may be more. 
I don’t know.”

“But you’re going to leave us?  What are you going to do?” A sudden kindness was in the girl’s voice.

“I’m a-goin’ out to Fort Bridger, that’s what I’m a-goin’ to do; an’ when I git thar I’m a-goin’ to lick hell out o’ both my squaws, that’s what I’m a-goin’ to do!  One’s named Blast Yore Hide, an’ t’other Dang Yore Eyes.  Which, ef ye ask me, is two names right an’ fitten, way I feel now.”

All at once Jim Bridger was all Indian again.  He turned and stalked a-way.  She heard his voice rising in his Indian chant as she turned back to her own wagon fire.

But now shouts were arising, cries coming up the line.  A general movement was taking place toward the lower end of the camp, where a high quavering call rose again and again.

“There’s news!” said Carson to Jesse Wingate quietly.  “That’s old Bill Jackson’s war cry, unless I am mistaken.  Is he with you?”

“He was,” said Wingate bitterly.  “He and his friends broke away from the train and have been flocking by themselves since then.”

Three men rode up to the Wingate wagon, and two flung off.  Jackson was there, yes, and Jed Wingate, his son.  The third man still sat his horse.  Wingate straightened.

“Mr. Banion!  So you see fit to come into my camp?” For the time he had no answer.

“How are you, Bill?” said Kit Carson quietly, as he now stepped forward from the shadows.  The older man gave him a swift glance.

“Kit!  You here—­why?” he demanded.  “I’ve not seed ye, Kit, sence the last Rendyvous on the Green.  Ye’ve been with the Army on the coast?”

“Yes.  Going east now.”

“Allus ridin’ back and forerd acrost the hull country.  I’d hate to keep ye in buckskin breeches, Kit.  But ye’re carryin’ news?”

“Yes,” said Carson.  “Dispatches about new Army posts—­to General Kearny.  Some other word for him, and some papers to the Adjutant General of the Army.  Besides, some letters from Lieutenant Beale in Mexico, about war matters and the treaty, like enough.  You know, we’ll get all the southern country to the Coast?”

“An’ welcome ef we didn’t!  Not a beaver to the thousand miles, Kit.  I’m goin’ to Oregon—­goin’ to settle in the Nez Perce country, whar there’s horses an’ beaver.”