Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/275

 flagstaff, and beside it were two cannon trained to cover the entrance. Surrounding the staff were the leather tents of the half-breed employees. At the rear of the square and facing the entrance stood the two-story house of Kenneth McKenzie, first king of the Missouri and the greatest bourgeois the A. F. C. ever had.

The house, like the other buildings inside the enclosure, was built of cottonwood. It boasted glass windows. Lander blinked in surprise. He had heard much about Fort Union in St. Louis, but was never able to draw an accurate line between fact and fiction. The powder-magazine, built of cut stone and having a capacity—as Bridger afterward informed him—of fifty thousand pounds, also increased his respect for his former employer.

There were well-equipped shops for the smith and carpenter and other workmen. There was an atmosphere of stability about the place. No wonder the Indians were slow to shift their allegiance to the flimsy post erected by the opposition, who in the river argot were known as one-winter-house traders.

"I'm Jim Bridger. I want to see Mr. McKenzie," Bridger told the engagé.