Bent and
Mr. Roubidoux if they would go these men's security for one
hundred dollars. They said they would, and I told the trappers the
horse was theirs. Mr. Roubidoux asked me if it was the horse he
had given me. I told him it was and he said: "You did well, for I
bought that horse of an emigrant last summer and have never been
able to get any money out of him. I think you will have to take a
lot of my horses to sell on commission, for I see right now you
can beat me selling horses all hollow."
We remained at the Fort three days this time, after which we
rigged up and started for the Kiowa nation again with more goods
to trade for buffalo robes. We made the trip in eleven days, being
the quickest we had yet made over the road.
We found the chief in an excellent humor, and he was as well
pleased over his new butcher knife as a boy would be over his
first pair of red topped boots.
We found the Indians anxious to trade robes for our trinkets and
we had no trouble in getting a load and more than we could pack
again. We made five trips that fall and winter with the very best
success, keeping those same four Indians with us all winter.
CHAPTER XXII.
A TRIP TO FORT KEARNEY--THE GENERAL ENDORSES US AND WE PILOT AN
EMIGRANT TRAIN TO CALIFORNIA.--WOMAN WHO THOUGHT I WAS "NO
GENTLEMAN."--A CAMP DANCE.
Jim Bridger proposed that he and I make a trip to Fort Kearney
together, and remain there until the emigrants began to come
along, thinking that perhaps the Sioux would be so bad on the
plains again that summer that we might get a layout scouting for
trains going to California.
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