“In that case,” says a Texas parent, “you couldn’t call this territory Washington.”
“I guess this is a free country,” says another.
“I guess,” says another, “the folks that live in a place has the right to call that place what they see fit.”
Poor Edmund! It wasn’t no use him explainin’ the confusion it made.
“There’s forty-eight places named Washington now,” says he. “I’ve looked it up. There ought to be just one. The capital of the United States. And the map is pitted with ’em like smallpox.”
“Washington, D.C., Maryland,” says Frisco Baldy, haulin’ in slack on the diamond hitch.
“Virginia,” says Kultus Jake, on the other side of the pack.
Edmund he just give ’em both a witherin’ look, and he whirls back into the store and gets to work at his desk. Wouldn’t come out to tell the old men good-by when they started off up the river, although he was grubstakin’ ’em for nothin’. They didn’t know that, of course. Expected to pay him in furs when they come back in the spring.
“You’ll not get very far to-day,” says an onlooker to the departin’ junipers. “You’re makin’ a late start.”
“Camp at Early Winter,” one of ’em says. Early Winter was a creek that come into the main stream about halfway to the Robinson Cabin.