“No?” The oldish face wrinkled into a smile. “No find ’em trail? Too bad! You don’t know me,” he added after a time.
“No, we don’t know nobody.”
“I’m Jesse Chisholm. My ranch is in Nations, south long way. I bring plenty horses up from Texas. I know your people. I been all across Texas from Palo Pinto to Double Mountain Fork, Buffalo Gap, Estacado; all the time I make trails.”
“And you have left one behind you now?”
“Sure! She’s easy from here to Caldwell. I got fifty wagon, plenty horse, plenty mule; make ford, sometime make bridge, sometime make raft. I got some wagons for Colonel Griswold. He’s going to make big reservation for Kiowas and Comanches. Fort Sill, he’ll call ’em.”
“So you’re Jesse Chisholm?” remarked Jim Nabours after a time. “I didn’t know for sure there was no such person. Tell me, is there such a place as Aberlene?”
“Sure! I trail up Arkansas River from east, pass Wichita. I hear Ab-lene up north. Sure!”
“All the Injuns know Jesse Chisholm,” he continued. “Osage, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw—I trade ’em horse all through there. I know Shawnee Trail, through Choctaws.”
“Then tell us, friend, since you know this country pretty well, how far is it out of the Nations from here?”
“Maybe so fifty-six mile. Caldwell, he’s on line above Osages. Always grass. So you go Ab’lene?”