The mother gave me her hand without speaking, but her tear-stained face and smiling lips thanked me more than words could have done. The young girl, whom the elder man presented as his daughter, thanked me in a sweet voice for bringing her brother back to them, and when all got through, I felt almost overpowered with their gratitude.
They insisted on my going home with them to stay all night, which I did, and the next morning I had the pleasure of meeting the father and mother and two brothers of the other man.
After I had talked with them all a while, one of the young men asked me what they should pay me for all the trouble I had taken upon myself in their cause.
I told them that I would take the twenty dollars that Col. Bent had given him for me, and as the morning was wearing away, I bid them good bye and left them and started on my journey to Taos, New Mexico, and my much-looked-forward-to visit to Uncle Kit, and that was the last time I ever saw any of these people. But a year ago I was at Denver and had occasion to call at the office of The Rocky Mountain News, which, by the way, is the oldest newspaper published in the state of Colorado, and while I was talking with the editor, he alluded to the incident I have just spoken about and said that the man whom I had found unconscious at the camp fire in the mountains lived and died at Denver, and that he was always called "Moccasin Bill," from the fact that he ate his moccasins while trying to find his way out of the mountains, and that for several months before he died he seemed to dwell upon that event and always mentioned how I'd rescued him from certain death on that to him never-to-be-forgotten occasion.
When I arrived at Taos, I found Uncle Kit and his family all in good health, and I found Jim Bridger there having what he called a grand good rest.
As soon as I had been greeted by Uncle Kit and the others of the family, he asked me how I had succeeded in my quest of the lost, and when I told him all the particulars, he said:
"Willie, my boy, that was one of the best things you have ever done, and it is something for you to be proud of doing, and I am proud of having a share in directing you what to do, and I am very proud of my boy."
I answered, "Uncle Kit, you have always taught me to do my duty on every occasion, as I have noticed you always do yourself, and it has been the example you have set before me as well as the instruction you have given me from my boyhood until now that has made me what I am, and I should be very sorry to do anything to make you ashamed of or cause you to regret that you took the little homeless, wandering orphan and gave him a father's care and protection, and I shall always try to make you love me whether I can do what will make you proud of me or not."