THE FIRST GOLD
The purple mantle of the mountain twilight was dropping on the hills
when Bridger and Carson rode out together from the Laramie stockade to
the Wingate encampment in the valley. The extraordinary capacity of
Bridger in matters alcoholic left him still in fair possession of his
faculties; but some new purpose, born of the exaltation of alcohol, now
held his mind.
"Let me see that little dingus ye had, Kit," said he--"that piece o'
gold."
Carson handed it to him.
"Ye got any more o' hit, Kit?"
"Plenty! You can have it if you'll promise not to tell where it came
from, Jim."
"If I do, Jim Bridger's a liar, Kit!"
He slipped the nugget into his pocket. They rode to the head of the
train, where Bridger found Wingate and his aids, and presented his
friend. They all, of course, knew of Fremont's famous scout, then at the
height of his reputation, and greeted him with enthusiasm. As they
gathered around him Bridger slipped away. Searching among the wagons, he
at last found Molly Wingate and beckoned her aside with portentous
injunctions of secrecy.
In point of fact, a sudden maudlin inspiration had seized Jim Bridger,
so that a promise to Kit Carson seemed infinitely less important than a
promise to this girl, whom, indeed, with an old man's inept infatuation,
he had worshiped afar after the fashion of white men long gone from
society of their kind. Liquor now made him bold. Suddenly he reached out
a hand and placed in Molly's palm the first nugget of California gold
that ever had come thus far eastward. Physically heavy it was; of what
tremendous import none then could have known.
"I'll give ye this!" he said. "An' I know whar's plenty more."
She dropped the nugget because of the sudden weight in her hand; picked
it up.
"Gold!" she whispered, for there is no mistaking gold.
"Yes, gold!"
"Where did you get it?"
She was looking over her shoulder instinctively.
"Listen! Ye'll never tell? Ye mustn't! I swore to Kit Carson, that give
hit to me, I'd never tell no one. But I'll set you ahead o' any livin'
bein', so maybe some day ye'll remember old Jim Bridger.
"Yes, hit's gold! Kit Carson brung it from Sutter's Fort, on the
Sacramenty, in Californy. They've got it thar in wagonloads. Kit's on
his way east now to tell the Army!"
"Everyone will know!"
"Yes, but not now! Ef ye breathe this to a soul, thar won't be two
wagons left together in the train. Thar'll be bones o' womern from here
to Californy!"
Wide-eyed, the girl stood, weighing the nugget in her hands.
"Keep hit, Miss Molly," said Bridger simply. "I don't want hit no more.
I only got hit fer a bracelet fer ye, or something. Good-by. I've got to
leave the train with my own wagons afore long an' head fer my fort.
Ye'll maybe see me--old Jim Bridger--when ye come through.
"Yes, Miss Molly, I ain't as old as I look, and I got a fort o' my own
beyant the Green River. This year, what I'll take in for my cargo, what
I'll make cash money fer work fer the immygrints, I'll salt down anyways
ten thousand; next year maybe twicet that, or even more. I sartainly
will do a good trade with them Mormons."
"I suppose," said the girl, patient with what she knew was alcoholic
garrulity.
"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
away. 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 Percé country, whar there's
horses an' beaver."
"But wait a bit afore you an' me gits too busy talkin'. Ye see, I'm with
Major Banion, yan, an' the Missoury train. We're in camp ten mile below.
We wouldn't mix with these people no more--only one way--but I reckon
the Major's got some business o' his own that brung him up. I rid with
him. We met the boy an' ast him to bring us in. We wasn't sure how
friendly our friends is feelin' towards him an' me."
He grinned grimly. As he spoke they both heard a woman's shrilling, half
greeting, half terror. Wingate turned in time to see his daughter fall
to the ground in a sheer faint.
Will Banion slipped from his saddle and hurried forward.