Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/99

 of a mighty people flooding the West. If he became a mountain man a settled condition would be the last destiny he would wish for his country. Trappers were one with the Indians in wishing the land to remain as it was with wild life flourishing and multiplying.

Lander thought tenderly of Susette, then jumped from his mule to examine the keelboat more critically and to wonder why such craft must be made in Cincinnati, Louisville or Pittsburgh. It now came home to him that had he not mixed up in the duel and killed his man he might have secured a little capital and from his own "navy yard" turned out keelboats and taken a rare profit.

"But if not for the fight I'd probably hung round town, somebody's hired man," he morosely told himself as he led his mule over the slight ridge to where Bridger's men were camped.

A chorus of yells accelerated his pace and he soon beheld some twenty men singing and dancing around their morning fires while nearly as many more were crawling from their blankets and cursing the hilarity of their mates. A slim, wiry-built man walked among them, counting off on his fingers to check them up.