Jim answered, “You needn’t worry about Will and me, for we may make you sorry twice, for when we get at the Antelope there may not be enough for the balance of you.”

After breakfast next morning two of the men struck ahead in order to get the antelope.  Near the trail about ten o’clock we overtook them, and they had killed two nice young antelope.  One said that if they had had ammunition enough with them they could have loaded the train with antelope.  That day we saw a number of bands of antelope, and I venture to say there were as many as eight hundred or a thousand in each band.

At supper that night Jim Bridger and I convinced Uncle Kit that we had not lost our appetite, if we didn’t have Beaver’s tail and Bear’s foot for supper.

The second day after leaving this camp we landed at Bent’s Fort about the middle of the afternoon.  That evening and all the next day Carson and Bridger were counting the pelts and paying off the men for the furs they had trapped during the winter.  Each man had a mark of his own which he put on all his hides as he took them off the animal.  I noticed one man always clipped the left ear; that was his mark.  Having a private mark for each man saved a great deal of trouble and dispute when the time came to separate the furs and give each man his due.

I heard Carson and Bridger talking after they had settled with the men, and Bridger said, “We have done twice as well as I expected we would do the past winter.”

Carson answered, “Jim, we had an extra good crew of men.  Every man worked for all that was in him and when they earned a dollar for themselves they earned one for us.  I am more than satisfied with our winter’s work and what it brought us.”

He then asked Jim and me what we intended to do that summer; Jim answered, “We are going back to Fort Kerney to pilot emigrants across to California, and it is time we were off now, for I believe by the first of May there will be lots of emigrants there, and we want to get there, and get the first train out, and if it is possible we are going to make two trips across the plains this season.”

CHAPTER III.

The next morning Carson left Bent’s Fort taking his four horses with him going to his home at Taos, New Mexico, and Jim and I, taking five horses, pulled out for Fort Kerney.  Nothing of interest happened to us on the way; and we made the trip in eleven days.  As soon as we got to the Fort, we called on the General; he was very glad to see us, and invited us to stay all night with him.  We accepted his invitation.  That evening at supper General Kerney mentioned my rescuing the two women at the head of Honey Lake the year before; he recounted the incident very much as it took place.

I said to him, “General, how in the name of common sense did you hear of all that?”