Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/168

118 four days reached Bent's Fort, where Uncle Kit sold his furs to Colonel Bent and Mr. Roubidoux.

These two kept a boarding-house at the Fort, and this being the general loafing place during the summer season for most of the trappers in this part of the country, they also kept whiskey, and after the trappers had sold their furs, many of them would stop around the Fort and pay board for about three or four months during each summer, and by the time they were ready to start trapping again, Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux would have all of their money back for grub and whiskey, and, in fact, many of them would be in debt to them.

There being so much stock around the Fort the game was driven back so far that it became necessary to go considerable distance to get any. Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux proposed to hire Johnnie West and I to hunt for them for two months, saying that they had not had fresh meat half of the time the past spring. We agreed to work for them for two months, they being willing to pay us fifty dollars each per month, with the understanding that in case we kept them in meat all summer they would pay us extra wages. They now having some thirty odd boarders, it took a great deal of meat, and having to go some distance for game we had to pack it on pack-horses. We hunted for them two months, and at the end of that time we had kept them in meat and had enough ahead to last them one month longer.

It now being time to start out to look for trapping ground for the coming winter, we went to Col. Bent for a settlement, and after he had counted out our hundred dollars each he asked us how much extra wages we