“Yes. That’s what we live on, mostly. Don’t have much coffee. Didn’t bring any, this trip.”
“We lost nearly all of ours—a whole bag full, in the Kansas River!” chirped Randolph. “Almost as soon as we’d started. Our rubber boat tipped over when we were crossing, and Kit Carson and Mr. Maxwell and everybody had to jump into the river and rescue things. Some of the men couldn’t swim, either; but they didn’t care! Kit Carson was sick two days from his wetting.”
“He’s often been in rivers. Trappers wade to their waist in ice-water, setting traps or finding ’em,” explained Oliver.
“Are you a trapper?”
“I’m learning,” answered Oliver, cautiously. And he added, with pride: “I’m a Kit Carson man, though.”
“Do those tacks in your rifle mean scalps?”
“Yes.”
“Did you take them?”
“No; but Kit Carson did, before he gave the rifle to me. It was his rifle.”
“I’d like to be a Kit Carson man,” declared Henry.