“The idea of my dividing this business with him,” said Carl in disgust. “Father never said a word about it. I would feel a great deal safer if I had Thompson. But I don’t intend to stay around here after I get back from St. Louis. I don’t want to be here, where everything will remind me of father. I shall go down to the fort and hire out to the commandant for a scout. I know the country as well as anybody, and I will not get lost.”
Carl’s first care was to get himself ready for the journey that was to come off on the morrow. He had been in the city but a few times with his father, and he thought he was pretty well acquainted with the banker who had charge of his father’s money; but in order to make assurance doubly sure there was a letter in his sire’s will addressed to the gentleman in question, and he was sure that it would gain him the identification necessary for him to get the funds. This letter he put carefully away in the inside pocket of the moleskin suit which he laid out in readiness for the trip. Thompson came in after he had set the men to work and seated himself on Carl’s bed.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Trip to St. Louis.
“Well, Thompson, what do think of the situation?” asked Carl, after waiting for some time to hear what the foreman had on his mind.
“I hain’t got nothing to wear,” said Thompson.
“You have as much as I have,” replied Carl.
“Everybody will look at us as we go tramping along the streets, and they will think we came from the hills, sure enough.”
“Well, you do, don’t you?” said Carl with a smile. “They looked at me the same way too, when I first went there, but I didn’t care for that. We will stay there one night and come away the next day. You can surely stand it that long.”
Yes, Thompson thought that he could do that, and adjourned to his own room to give his clothes the needed brushing. They would do well enough out there where everybody wore clothing of the same description, but he did not know how they would look in a place containing so large a population as St. Louis. He concluded that everything would pass muster except his chaparejos, his cowboy’s riding-pants, which he thought were a little too well-worn to pass muster anywhere. But then he could exchange with one of the new men whom Mr. Preston had hired a short time before his death.