The Frémont and Carson company could delay only a day at the pleasant Meadows. Soon after leaving the camping place they noted a moving cloud of dust on the trail behind; out of the dust cloud evolved hurrying figures—a little squad of horsemen.
“Whites!” pronounced Kit, at once. “Americans, too—an’ ride like trappers.” And—“If that airn’t old Joe Walker, leading ’em, I’ll eat him,” he added.
The pursuing squad, nine riders, and several pack-animals, drew on at fast trot. The foremost was a horseman splendidly large of stature, with plentiful gray whiskers covering cheeks and chin. He threw up his hand in salute; Kit and the lieutenant answered in kind.
“Hello, Kit,” he called.
“Hello, Joe. Whar you bound?”
He had arrived, and pulled short.
“Jest looking for company. Saw your sign down the trail, an’ started on to overtake ye.”
“Wall, you’ve done it,” commented Kit, coolly. Whereupon he introduced to one another the lieutenant and Captain Joe Walker, mountain-man, trapper, trader, guide.
The captain had started from Los Angeles with the annual main caravan for Santa Fé. Seeing the trail of the Frémont and Carson company, with eight men, Americans all, he boldly had set out, across the desert, to catch the expedition. That was just like old Joe Walker, Kit Carson afterwards declared. They had fought with the Diggers, killing two and in turn receiving wounds among the horses; and here they were.
For such a fighter and adventurer Captain Joe Walker bore a singularly mild, although determined visage, from which clear blue eyes peered out, above the whiskers. Oliver was attracted by him at once, and was glad when he heard him agree to guide the company across the mountains, ahead. He had made a specialty of the Great Basin and the approaches to it, and had traded much among the Utes, whose country bordered it on the east of the Salt Lake. Therefore the region now toward the northeast was familiar to him.