"If I do, Jim Bridger's a liar, Kit!"
He slipped the nugget into his pocket. They rode to the head of the train, where Bridger found Wingate and his aids, and presented his friend. They all, of course, knew of Fremont's famous scout, then at the height of his reputation, and greeted him with enthusiasm. As they gathered around him Bridger slipped away. Searching among the wagons, he at last found Molly Wingate and beckoned her aside with portentous injunctions of secrecy.
[pg 197]
In point of fact, a sudden maudlin inspiration had seized Jim Bridger, so that a promise to Kit Carson seemed infinitely less important than a promise to this girl, whom, indeed, with an old man's inept infatuation, he had worshiped afar after the fashion of white men long gone from society of their kind. Liquor now made him bold. Suddenly he reached out a hand and placed in Molly's palm the first nugget of California gold that ever had come thus far eastward. Physically heavy it was; of what tremendous import none then could have known.
"I'll give ye this!" he said. "An' I know whar's plenty more."
She dropped the nugget because of the sudden weight in her hand; picked it up.
"Gold!" she whispered, for there is no mistaking gold.
"Yes, gold!"
"Where did you get it?"