And trudging afoot, like the majority of the company, to save the horses, Kit Carson and Alexander Godey took each a side of the nervous Indian and patted their rifle-stocks significantly. He rolled his eyes in mute despair. The snowflakes had coated his dark skin, for he sillily carried his blue and red cloth tightly rolled, in a wad, rather than don it and perhaps soil it. Presently the lieutenant called:
“All right, Kit. Let him go. The trail looks plain.”
“Wall,” answered Kit; “mout as well. He says thar’s a hut near whar he’ll stay till after the storm.” And with a single motion of his arm he bade the guide be free—whereupon away scudded the glad youth, as hard as he could run, for shelter.
As had been promised by the Indians behind, into the camp here at the inner foot of the pass came other Indians. They thronged, mysteriously as wild animals, to the fires; they were without fear, and were very inquisitive. The lieutenant held again a council, to ask for a guide.
Kit Carson made the sign-talk for the company; for the Indians an old man responded. The fires blazed brightly, illuminating the snow, and the trees, and the Indians, squatting in a row upon logs or ground, and the company lying about, rifles handy. It was a wild scene.
“Tell them,” instructed the lieutenant, to Kit, “that we have come from very far, almost a twelve-months’ journey to the east, and that we wish only to get across these mountains, into the country there of the other whites.”
Thus Kit did. The old man answered more rapidly even than speech—for a gesture conveyed a whole sentence.
“He says,” translated Kit, “that we can’t get over, now. Before snow fell it war six sleeps across to t’other side, whar whites live; now the snow air over our heads. He says we must follow this hyar river down, an’ whar it empties into a lake thar air fish, an’ people, an’ no snow, an’ we can stay thar till spring. Reckon he means that same lake we war at—Pyramid Lake.”
“Tell him that we are strong and our horses are strong, and that we will break a way through the snow. Tell him that we will give all this cloth and those beads and other valuables, for a guide on across the mountains to the country of the white people there.”