"I suppose," said the girl, patient with what she knew was alcoholic garrulity.
"An' out there's the purtiest spot west o' the Rockies, My valley is ever'thing a man er a womern can ask or want. And me, I'm a permanent man in these yere parts. It's me, Jim Bridger, that fust diskivered the Great Salt Lake. It's me, Jim Bridger, fust went through Colter's Hell up in the Yellowstone. Ain't a foot o' the Rockies I don't know. I eena-most built the Rocky Mountains, me." He spread out his hands. "And I've got to be eena'most all Injun myself."
"I suppose." The girl's light laugh cut him.
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"But never so much as not to rever'nce the white woman, Miss Molly. Ye're all like angels to us wild men out yere. We--we never have forgot. And so I give ye this, the fust gold from Californy. There may be more. I don't know."
"But you're going to leave us? What are you going to do?" A sudden kindness was in the girl's voice.
"I'm a-goin' out to Fort Bridger, that's what I'm a-goin' to do; an' when I git thar I'm a-goin' to lick hell out o' both my squaws, that's what I'm a-goin' to do! One's named Blast Yore Hide, an' t'other Dang Yore Eyes. Which, ef ye ask me, is two names right an' fitten, way I feel now."
All at once Jim Bridger was all Indian again. He turned and stalked away. She heard his voice rising in his Indian chant as she turned back to her own wagon fire.
But now shouts were arising, cries coming up the line. A general movement was taking place toward the lower end of the camp, where a high quavering call rose again and again.