“Wall,” quoth Lieutenant Ike, “if we’ve all been thar once we can all go thar ag’in. Kit’s sent for us, an’ that’s ’nough. Come on, boys.”
[V]
FRÉMONT SAYS “ONWARD!”
“Thar’s Fort John,” directed Oliver’s trail comrade, William New.
This was the fourth day after the meeting with Jim Beckwith; the march had been steadily northward, with snowy mountains distant on the left, and with far bleak ridges showing ever more clear, in the north.
“Thar’s Fort John,” directed William New. “Those mountains beyond it are the Black Hills, whar the Sioux an’ Cheyenne cache themselves.”
“Is that the same as Fort Laramie?” asked Oliver.
“Yep. That beaver has two tails, is all. John war what the Company (and by this Oliver knew that he meant the great American Fur Company) named it, an’ that’s what most o’ us old trappers call it; but ‘Laramie’ is the general name ’mongst traders, an’ some trappers too. You see, it’s on Laramie Fork o’ the North Platte, an’ that peak over it is Laramie Peak, so ‘Laramie’ ’s a natteral word.”
While still riding northward as if to pass by Fort Laramie on the other side of Laramie Creek, the squad encountered a plain trail, almost a road, running east and west; and into this turned at once Lieutenant Ike and fellow leader. Therefore turned into it all, as matter of course.