“But I am free!” said the boy, who was not long in finding some crumbs of comfort with which to solace himself. “I can go where I please, and there is no Jack Bowles to dog my footsteps and beat me with his rawhide. I can eat, sleep and walk about in perfect security, knowing that there is no one to molest me. I am leaving behind me Richard Mortimer, Sanders and all the rest of my secret enemies, and the dangers and difficulties I have yet to encounter will be such as I know how to meet. If I do not find my home and friends before my money is gone, I have a good horse and rifle, and I know how to shoot and trap. I shall be able to take care of myself.”
There were several men riding in company in advance of the train, and not wishing to intrude upon them, Julian fell in behind, and during the whole of that forenoon never spoke a word to any one. When noon came the wagons began to draw off into the woods one by one, and in a quarter of an hour the entire train had come to a halt, and preparations for dinner were actively going on. Julian, hungry and lonely, would have been glad of an invitation to join one of the happy parties that were scattered about among the trees, but no one noticed him. He dismounted a little apart from the rest of the emigrants, and after tying his horse to a tree, spread his poncho upon the ground, and was about to begin an attack upon the small supply of crackers and cheese stowed away in his saddle-bags, when some one spoke to him.
“Wal, my lad, its grub time,” said a familiar voice.
Julian looked up, and there, leaning upon a rifle that an ordinary man could scarcely have raised to his shoulder, stood the tall trapper whom he had met in the streets of St. Joseph. At the sight of him his old fears were revived with redoubled force.
“Here’s one enemy I haven’t left behind me,” thought Julian. “I must still be on the lookout for treachery. I know it is dinner-time,” he added, aloud; “and I am just about to take advantage of it.”
“In what way? I don’t see that you have got anything to eat.”
“I have, nevertheless,” replied the boy, laying his hand on his saddle-bags.
“Do you keep it in thar?” asked the trapper, with a laugh. “How long do you think it’ll last you?”
“A day or two; and when it is gone my rifle must supply my larder. There must be an abundance of game on the plains.”