Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/273

 our claim the A. F. C. would pay the price, minus the H. B.'s ten per cent. The A. F. C. has more power up here with the Injuns than the government has. So we must git the keelboat an' load it an' be off down-river the minute the packs come along.

"Don't you open your meat-trap while at the fort. Keep shet. Above all things don't start a row with Phinny. Warm up to him an' tell how glad you be he escaped.

"Don't wander away from the fort where old Deschamps can git a crack at you. I'll do all the talking, an' I won't seem to be in a hurry or look fussed up any. Kenneth McKenzie is a mighty hard man to fool."

By late afternoon they made the mouth of the Yellowstone. The channel was narrow and the water was low and they had no trouble in swimming their horses across to the north side of the Missouri. As they rode up the bank and came in sight of the solid pretentious structure of Fort Union, more persistently and intimately connected with the fur trade than any other post, Bridger whimsically remarked:

"You're almost eighteen hundred channel miles from the little lady in St. Louis, an' whether you