“He is my father.”
“I know it.”
“You do?” cried Julian. He looked at the man in utter bewilderment, and arose hastily to his feet. “Good-day, sir,” said he. “I am obliged to you for the information you gave me about that wagon train.”
The trapper made no reply. He took his pipe out of his mouth and looked after the boy as he jumped off the steps and hurried down the street, and when he disappeared he arose, thrust his hands in his pockets and sauntered after him. What would Julian have thought if he had known that he was running away from the only friend he had east of the mountains?
“I will have nothing to do with any one who has ever seen or heard of me,” soliloquized the boy, as he hurried along, looking into the different stores he passed. “How does it come, I wonder, that so many men whom I never saw before know me? I am going to depend upon myself until I am satisfied that I am out of danger. If Sanders makes his appearance again I will send him about his business. I will go out with that wagon train, and perhaps before I reach the mountains I shall find some man who doesn’t know me, and who can give me the information I want. This is the place I am looking for.”
He stopped in front of a store, where a boy about his own age was at work taking down the shutters. It appeared to be a sort of variety store, for clothing and furnishing goods were displayed in one of the windows, and weapons and saddlery in the other.
Julian entered, and when he came out again, a quarter of an hour afterward, he had made as great a change in his appearance as Sanders did during the short time he remained in the Hunter’s Home. He was dressed in a full Mexican suit, which the polite and attentive clerk had made him believe was just the thing to wear during a journey across the plains, and in the saddle-bags, which he carried over his shoulder, was another and a finer suit of the same description, as well as a small supply of powder and lead, a brace of revolvers, and several other articles of which he thought he might stand in need. On his arm he carried a poncho—a rubber blanket with a hole in the center—which was to be used in lieu of an umbrella in rainy weather.
When he came out and bent his steps toward the hotel, a tall fellow in buckskin, who was leaning against an awning on the opposite side of the street, straightened up and followed after him. When he sat down to his breakfast the same man walked through the hall, and looked in at the dining-room; and when, after paying his bill at the hotel, he came out with all his weapons and luggage, and sprung upon his horse, the man in buckskin disappeared down a neighboring street, and presently came back again, mounted on a large cream-colored mustang, and rode in pursuit of Julian.
Our hero found that the information the strange trapper had given him concerning the wagon train was correct. The emigrants had been encamped on a common a short distance from the hotel, and when Julian came up with them they were all on the move. The road in advance of him was dotted with white wagon-covers as far as his eyes could reach. It was a novel and interesting sight to him, and he soon forgot his troubles in watching what was going on around him. The day that he had thought of and lived for so long had arrived at last, and he was fairly on his way to the mountains. The road the emigrants intended to follow might not lead him to his home, but what of that? It was enough for him to know that it crossed the mountains somewhere.
Billy, being in high mettle, insisted on going ahead, and his rider allowing him a free rein, was carried at a swinging gallop along the entire length of the train until he arrived at the foremost wagons. The emigrants all seemed to be in excellent spirits, and Julian heard them laughing and talking with one another as he dashed by. On the way he passed several boys, who were racing their horses along the road, now and then stopping to call back to their parents and friends in the wagons. Their merriment had an effect upon Julian. It made him contrast their situation with his own. In all that wagon train there was no one to greet him, no one who knew how he longed for a word of sympathy and encouragement from somebody, and no one who cared for him or his affairs.