“Yes.”
“You did not know that the South Pass was beyond Fort John, I presume!” pursued the lieutenant, sarcastically—creating another laugh.
The man maintained sulky silence, hanging his head.
“Well, my poor fellow, we are very sorry for you,” continued the officer. “You are welcome to your pay and discharge, and you can be making garden at the post so as to have nice vegetables ready for us when we come back!” Thus having ridiculed him, the lieutenant asked, generally: “Is there anybody else who is tired in heart or feet?”
None answered—for which Oliver was glad.
“Humph!” criticised Randolph, as the three boys trudged off to visit the post. “Wish now they’d take us instead. But they won’t. I’ve got to stay and wind the old chronometers every day!”
The next morning Oliver (accompanied by the envious and disconsolate Henry and Randolph) was paying another visit to the fort. Lieutenant Frémont, and Kit Carson and Lucien Maxwell and several of the French trappers in the Frémont company had entered the office of Mr. Boudeau, the agent, as if to say good-by; when through the gate and across the court, for the office, stalked, with great dignity, half a dozen Sioux—all chiefs. They were finely built men, several of them old.
A clerk at the door of the office would wave them away; but they acted as if they did not see him, and past him they shouldered, and on in.
“Come on!” whispered Randolph, to his comrades. “There’s something up. They’re from Fort Platte, at the Platte River a mile below. I’ve seen ’em there.”
So, the way apparently being open, in after the Indians sidled the boys.