"He suggested that we should leave our surplus money in his safe, and I believe it's a good scheme, for we'll have no use for money over on the Walnut, where we're going, an' we might lose it. Peck might go over to the store now, takin' Jack along for a witness, an' deposit our money with the sutler an' take a receipt for it; an' if we have occasion to draw any of it out at any time it can be entered on the back of the receipt. Savvy?"
We "savvied" and agreed to Tom's plan.
"Weisselbaum told me," continued the old man, "where to find 'French Dave,' an' Dave told me that it's all plain sailing an' about twenty miles from here over to Walnut in the nearest direction, straight north; an' there'll be no rough ground to get over except the head of Ash Creek, an' there ain't much there. He says by bearin' a little to the west of north we'll miss the breaks of Ash Creek an' strike Walnut about the mouth of a little creek putting into Walnut from the south, where there's a snug place for a well-sheltered winter camp, with timber on the north an' west; an' I think that's just about the kind of a layout we want to find."
"What does Dave say about the Kiowas?" I asked.
"He says they're peaceable so far, 'but always keep your eye skinned,' sez he, 'whenever Satank or Satanta, with their bands, come around.' But of course we knew that."
Jack and I hurried over to the sutler's store, where we were very affably received by Weisselbaum, who shook us warmly by the hands and now had no difficulty in remembering us. We made our deposit, took his receipt, and returned to camp. After reporting to Tom the result of our trip, Jack remarked:
"Well, I don't know of any surer winnin' game than a post sutler's job. It'll beat four aces an' a six-shooter."
"Right you are, my lad," chipped in Tom. "It's a sure shot—dead open an' shut. Better'n a goldmine, for there's little risk an' small loss compared with the profits; for the post sutler on the frontier just rakes in the money of officers, soldiers, citizens, Injuns, an' everybody. Besides havin' a monopoly of all trade on the post reservation, he generally has the inside track on forage contracts an' the like."
"Do you mind old Rich, the sutler at Fort Leavenworth?" asked Jack, "an' the dead oodles of money he rakes in all the time? An' he's been sutler there so long, too, he must be as rich as the Rothschilds. A queer duck is old Rich," he continued reflectively, "or 'Kernel' Rich, I should have said, for when you call him 'Kernel,' specially if you salute him along with it, it pleases him all over an' raises his opinion of himself about five hundred per cent."
"Yes," replied Tom, "I remember one time when several of us soldiers were a-standing around old Rich's store door, an' among the lot was Bob Chambers, of F Company. You know Bob always had his cheek with him. Well, while we were a-talking, Bill Shutts come out of the store a-grumbling an' a-cussing. 'What's the matter, Shutts?' asked Bob. 'Why, I'm expectin' a letter from home,' says Bill, 'an' when I asked that old galoot if there was a letter for me, the old fellow wouldn't look—never even asked me my name—but just says, crabbed like, says he: "No, nothin' for you." 'Now,' says Bill, 'I'll bet two dollars an' sixty-five cents that there's a letter in there right now for William Shutts, Esquire, from Dresden, O., but I can't get it.'