Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/68



T LACKED an hour of midnight when Jim Bridger locked the Washington Avenue store and walked down to the river-front. He was about to leave the city for another year in the mountains, and there was no guarantee he would ever return. There were many forgotten graves along the Missouri and its tributaries. Bridger meditated calmly on the possible vicissitudes of the season ahead, and knew that for a certain percentage of his mountain men this would be the last trip to the Rockies.

He had halted close to the river and found himself staring through the soft moonlight at Bloody Island. The island, famous as a dueling-ground for the hot spirits of the time, who would not be satisfied with anything short of a rival's blood, always fascinated him. As a boy he knew its history. Often he had wandered over it and paused