Consequently, although Oliver felt somewhat disappointed that Henry Brandt and Randolph Benton were not to be along, he foresaw, by the preparations and by the make-up of the company, that it was going to be a tremendous trip.
A few days later, in rode Kit Carson with ten fine mules from Bent’s Fort; and on the morning of July 23 in rode the lieutenant and party, including Jacob Dodson the negro youth, and Sergeant Zindel the artillerist, and Mr. Preuss, and Basil Lajeunesse. Lucien Maxwell was not with them. He had not come back from his trip after mules at Taos.
The lieutenant had left word at the Pueblo that he would wait at St. Vrain until the morning of the twenty-sixth. The morning of the twenty-sixth dawned, and no Maxwell had appeared. Evidently he was not coming. So the lieutenant ordered “Catch up!” and the company bustled for the start. At this moment arose a new complication. Lieutenant Frémont had decided that he ought to find a short cut from St. Vrain’s Fort across the mountains to strike the Oregon Trail somewhere near the South Pass, instead of travelling up to Fort Laramie and then turning west for the Pass. Nobody at St. Vrain’s could tell him of any trail except a danger-trail used mainly by hostile Indians. Such a trail did traverse northwest, to the Sweetwater; but it was being given over to the Plains Indians when they raided the Utes and the Snakes, and to the Crows when they raided the Plains Indians, and only recently several trappers had been killed on it.
Thereupon, hearing the plans, the two Delawares announced that the mountains looked cold to them, the trail was beset with their enemies, they were far from their own people, and they were going home.
“Very well,” said Lieutenant Frémont. “Let them go. We want only men. But we must find another hunter or two, to take their places.”
“Godey’ll sign up,” advised Fitzpatrick. “You get him and you’ll have somebody almost as good as Kit.”
Alexander Godey was a young French trapper and trader at the post. Everyone seemed to like him; and although he put considerable time upon his long, wavy black hair, brushing it and dressing it with Indian care, none ventured to twit him about it. He was not a man to be twitted.
“How about him, Kit?” asked the lieutenant.
“A fine fellow,” assured Kit, generously. “I don’t know a better. Take him.”
Whereupon Godey of the silky locks was engaged.