Supper being over, all repaired to the dance hall and enjoyed
themselves dancing until sunrise the next morning, when they
returned to the tables for breakfast. This time they had coffee
and tea, but during the entire feast they did not have a bite of
bread on the table.
Here I met Jim Beckwith, of whom there will be much more said at
intervals later on.
Jim wanted me to accompany him to California the following spring,
saying that he knew of a pass through the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
which, if we could manage to get the tide of emigration turned
that way, we could establish a toll road and make a fortune out of
it. I said I would not promise him now, but would give him an
answer later on.
The wedding being over, Johnnie West and I, after bidding Uncle
Kit and his wife good-bye, started for Bent's Fort. Col. Bent and
Mr. Roubidoux wanted to employ us to hunt for them the coming
winter. Johnnie thought he could do better trapping, but I hired
to them to hunt until the following spring.
Col. Bent always had from six to twenty boarders, having six men
of his own, and I kept them in meat all winter, alone.
About the first of April--this being in 1854--I settled up with
the Colonel, and having written Jim Beckwith the fall before that
I would be on hand to go with him to California, I now pulled out
for Taos.
I visited with Uncle Kit and his wife while at Taos, and found
that what Mrs.
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