“Yep; an’ those missionary women crossed through in Thirty-six, an’ more in Thirty-eight,” chimed in another. “That broke the trail to the Oregon country, sure.”
“Seems to me the government must be planning a line of forts, and the expedition will spy out and report on that,” remarked Maxwell. “Like as not an army man will lead it.”
“Oregon country air a fine country,” asserted somebody. “Think o’ trying it, myself. ’Most went thar as settler when Joe Meek an’ Doc Newell an’ others took the Columbia Trail after last rendezvous in Thirty-nine.”
“Trés-belle, ess eet. I hear so from my cousin, who leeve in la valle Weellamette. He was Hudson Bay man, trapper; now he farmer,” volunteered Henri Menard, French-Canadian of St. Louis.
Such was the talk following upon Kit Carson’s quiet announcement that he would go back this spring by early caravan to Missouri, and there leave his little half-Indian Adaline, to give her the schooling which he had missed. And Lucien Maxwell said he “guessed” that he would go, too, and visit his parents and other relatives at Kaskaskia.
For the remainder of the company, north led the trapper trail: from old Taos up through the mountains of central Colorado, into the South Park, thence on over by wild passes into the Middle Park. They set their beaver traps in the side streams of the Grand River. It seemed best not to go on further, for Indian trouble was rumored.
This was Ute country, and the friendly dark Utes with their squaws followed the camps—the squaws skinning the beaver and asking only the carcass or a pinch of sugar, the bucks gorging and trading. Deer meat, elk meat, buffalo meat, and delicious roast beaver-tail which looked like thick gelatin and tasted like saltless pig’s-feet, was the camp menu. It was a very pleasant trapping trip.
About June 1, with eighteen packs of beaver, otter, and martin pelts—each beaver or otter bale containing eighty skins—half the company, led by Ike Chamberlain, rode out for Taos; the others stayed in, to rest and “make meat” and repair equipment, until opened the fall fur hunt. In the homeward travelling company was Oliver, now a seasoned trapper as well as an accepted “Carson man.”
Old Taos had not changed in the three months. Only, Kit Carson had gone, as promised, to the States. He had caught the first of the Bent, St. Vrain & Co. goods caravans out of Bent’s Fort for Missouri, five hundred and more miles, to put Adaline where she would get some education. Lucien Maxwell had gone, too.
“Wall, Kit won’t stay long,” drawled Ike—his first remark after hearing the facts. “He’ll find things are different; the frontier’s grown up with people, an’ he’ll feel lonesome, ’mongst ’em. He’ll be coming back to Touse, right soon.”