The man to whom Reuben was to deliver his message was not to be found
at the mission. However, the tired young traveller was warmly welcomed,
and soon after he had eaten his supper he was soundly sleeping.
The following morning his message was delivered to Captain White, who
was in command of a schooner which had sailed from New York around Cape
Horn. The captain read the letter which Reuben had brought, and then
looking keenly into the face of the lad, he said: “How many skins have
they?”
“There are a good many,” replied Reuben, “but I don’t know just how
many.”
“Do you think they have got enough to fill the hold of the _Charming
Nancy_?”
“I’ve never seen the _Charming Nancy_!”
The captain, who was a large, good-natured man, laughed noisily at the
response and then said: “I guess you’re a Yankee?”
“I am not a Yankee,” retorted Reuben. “I come from Pain Court.”
“Whew!” whistled the captain. “You’re a youngster to be so far away
from home. How old are you?”
“I’ll be sixteen my next birthday.”
“Is that so? You’ll be quite an old gentleman soon if you don’t look
out. I guess you had better go back and tell your boss that we can
strike up some kind of a deal, if he doesn’t want too much for his
furs.”
“Shall I take that message?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you going to write a letter?”
“I hadn’t thought anything about it. Can you write?”
“Yes,” answered Reuben.
“Well, then, you write the letter. I’ll tell you what to say.”
Suspecting that the handwriting of the captain was perhaps not of the
best, Reuben obtained a quill pen and some paper and ink and soon had
written a letter at the dictation of the man. Just why he should be
asked to do this he did not understand, inasmuch as it would be as easy
for him to report what was said as it was to write out the direct
message of Captain White. However, he discreetly held his peace, and
the following day, with the letter in his pocket, set forth on his
return to camp.
In spite of his determination to be brave, Reuben’s heart was beating
rapidly when once more he rode into the ravine where the mountain lion
had threatened to attack him. It was speedily manifest also that the
pony had vivid recollections of his experiences in the narrow valley
and was eager to be beyond its confines.
Without any reluctance Reuben gave the hardy little beast free rein and
at a rapid pace rode through the place of peril without any mishap. He
maintained a keen outlook on both sides of the gorge, but did not
discover any signs of the presence of the enemy which had so nearly
attacked him two days before. Nor was Reuben molested in the remainder
of his journey back to the camp.
When he arrived he at once delivered his message and explained to Kit
Carson and others the questions which Captain White had asked him.
“We can fix this all right,” said Kit Carson quickly. “I think we have
skins enough to fill the hold of the _Charming Nancy_ so that neither
Captain White nor her owners will have any reason to complain.”
Several days elapsed, however, before the bargain was completed. In
this time the scout himself went to San Gabriel and had two or three
personal interviews with the jovial sea captain.
When Kit Carson returned, Reuben was particularly interested in the
description he gave of an attack which had been made upon him by the
mountain lion.
“Where did you find him?” inquired Reuben.
“Why, it was among the foothills about seven or eight miles this side
of San Gabriel.”
“That’s exactly where I met one. Did you kill it?”
“I think so,” replied Kit Carson quietly. “The beast crept up behind me
and I had all I could do to keep my pony from running away with me.”
“That’s exactly what happened to me. I don’t see how you shot him.”
“I think it must have been pure luck. I got the pony quiet for a minute
and turned around and fired at the beast when it was not more than ten
or twelve feet away. A blind man couldn’t have missed it.”
Reuben had his own thoughts as to the truthfulness of the modest
declaration, but he did not give expression to them. In response to the
questions of the scout, he modestly related the incident which had
befallen him in his own journey in the same region.
“You were a lucky lad,” said Kit Carson warmly. “And you couldn’t have
acted better if you had been sixty-one instead of sixteen. You never
had seen one before, had you?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand yet why it was that you didn’t put your pony into a
run and try to escape. It was lucky for you that you didn’t, for if you
had tried it the beast would have got you as sure as fate.”
“I had heard Jean tell about the lions, and all that he had said
flashed into my mind in a minute. And I saw a man at San Gabriel that
looked so much like Jean that I was almost sure that it was he.”
“Are you sure that he wasn’t?”
“No, and that’s what puzzles me most of all. You see I left him the
other side of the Rocky Mountains. It can’t be possible that he made
his way all alone through the Rockies, and across the plains and over
the Sierras into San Gabriel. Besides, this man looks as if he was
either crazy or a fool. There’s something the matter with him anyway.
He stared at me as if I was like air and he could look straight through
me.”
“I never met a man like that,” said Kit Carson quietly, smiling as he
spoke. “I guess it will turn out all right, and, besides, you may have
several chances to see him again in the next few days. We’re going to
load up our ponies with the furs we have taken, or at least with a part
of them, and send them down to Captain White.”
“What is he going to do with them?”
“Take them to New York for us. We shan’t let him have all that we have
taken, but it will save a long hard ride if we let him have some of
them here, and besides, I think now we shall trap much of the way back
to Taos. By the time we get there we ought to have a load that will
satisfy every man, to say nothing of our horses.”
In the three weeks that followed, all the ponies of the camp were
brought into service. They were heavily loaded with the skins that the
trappers had secured and then began their long journey to the _Charming
Nancy_. A careful record was kept, and a division among the trappers of
the amount received from the sales of furs was to be made later.
Soon afterward the men returned to their camp and for several days were
busily engaged in other tasks. Indeed, they were unusually successful,
and the piles of beaver skins steadily mounted higher and higher.
At last when it was decided to break camp the trappers delayed a day in
order to make a _cache_. A long trench was made in an unusually dry
bank of earth not far from a stream on which the men had been trapping.
A deep hole or excavation was made in this bank until a trench several
yards wide and many yards long had been fashioned. All the time the men
maintained guards and also took the utmost pains to hide every trace of
their labours so that none of the prowling Indians would suspect either
the task in which they had been engaged or the place where the skins
had been hidden.
The turf was cut with great care and placed on one side of the hole.
Much of the top soil then was placed on blankets or buffalo robes. The
rest of the dirt which they dug while they were making the excavation
was carried in pails by the men to the middle of the stream and there
poured into the rushing waters.
At last when the hole was as large as they desired, twigs and dry
grasses were cut and with these the trappers carefully lined the hole
which they had dug. After all this had been done the furs were tightly
packed and stored in the place. Last of all, grass and loose skins were
placed over the bundles of furs and pounded with the top soil, which
had been saved and had now been brought back from the place in which it
had been stored. Then all the ground was watered and the turf was
replaced with utmost care. After the task had been accomplished, unless
a man had been informed of the work which had been done, it would have
been almost impossible for him to discover any signs about the place
that the trappers had made a storehouse in which they had concealed
their furs.
A little later, when the September days came, it was decided by the
trappers that they would start homeward. But it was also agreed that
they would trap throughout their journey. They were to escape the
hardest part of the ride across the desert because they now planned to
follow the Colorado River in its course until they came to the Gila.
Then their course again was to be changed and they were to follow that
river on their homeward way. In this manner they were confident that
they would be able to trap as they journeyed and, if fortune should
favour them, they would add many skins to those which they already had
taken.
The plan was speedily approved, and as the men sat about the camp
talking of the return which they were now eager to make, the
proceedings were interrupted by the approach of a stranger.
Instantly Reuben recognized him as Rat, the braggart whom he had last
seen when he was among the foothills of the Rockies.
Confidently, as if the man himself had been a member of the band for a
long time, the stranger approached and said: “I want to stop with you
over night.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Kit Carson, nevertheless gazing keenly at the
stranger as he spoke.
“I have taken about fifteen hundred skins,” said the visitor, laughing
loudly as he spoke.
“Where are they?” inquired the scout.
“They are where I have hidden them so that neither you nor anybody else
ever will find them, if I don’t want you to. There isn’t a man this
side of Pain Court that can make a _cache_ as good as the one I made.”
“You’re fortunate,” said Kit Carson quietly. “You’re lucky not only to
have the skins, but to be able to hide them so that no one will ever
find them.”
“That’s where you’re right,” laughed the stranger. “What have you done
with all your skins?” he added as he looked about the camp.
“We have been lucky, too,” said Kit Carson quietly. “Captain White of
the _Charming Nancy_ has shipped a lot of our furs as a part of his
cargo.”
“Maybe he’ll take mine, too.”
“It’s too late. He has sailed before now.”
“That’s a pity,” said Rat. “I’ll have to tote mine clear across the
desert. I think I’ll have one or two of your men go with me.”
“That cannot be done.”
“Oh, yes, it can!” roared the man.
“No,” replied Kit Carson, still speaking in low tones. “There isn’t any
one of us that wants to go with you.”
“What do you mean by that?” roared Rat, leaping to his feet as he
spoke. “Do you mean to say my company isn’t desired?”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“Is that what you mean?”
“I usually mean what I say.”
“Is that what you mean?” again thundered the angry giant, who acted now
much as if he had been striving to pick a quarrel with some one.
“I haven’t anything more to say. If you want to pick a fight with some
one you had better go on to some other place.”
Rat now was angry and he took no pains to conceal his feelings. As yet
he had not recognized Reuben, and the lad was too keenly excited by
what was occurring in the camp to call the attention of the quarrelsome
man to himself.
“I don’t have to go on. There isn’t any American in this camp that I
can’t switch.”
A silence followed the speech of the boastful man and it was not broken
until Kit Carson said quietly: “It’s plain you’re not an American. I
am, and I demand that you take back what you said.”