“Boy, Kit sent me to ask how’d you like to go on to Touse with us, ’stead o’ to Santy Fee with the caravan?”
Oliver gasped.
“Can I? With you!”
“If you want to, an’ if Kit decides so. We take the Touse trail in the morning. Now, if you’re to come, thar’ll be a fire made at the foot o’ that thar cottonwood, standing out alone. See it? Wall, if you see the flare, pretty soon, you’ll know. But you’ll lose yore wages from the caravan. They’ll not pay ye less you go through to Santy Fee with ’em.”
“I don’t care,” stammered Oliver. “I’d rather go to Touse, with you. Can I be a Kit Carson man?”
“Reckon you can, some time, if you got it in you; an’ if Kit thinks you have, you have. All right; don’t say anything, an’ watch for the fire.”
Sol rode back to his mates. Oliver watched anxiously. Hurrah, the fire flared, just as he was trudging to supper. And when, in the morning, caravan and trappers parted company, into the west on the Taos trail rode with the Kit Carson men little Oliver Wiggins.