Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/181

Rh that I had done enough for him to pay for my raising. I had always felt under obligations to him for picking me up when I was without a home and almost penniless, and had, as I considered made a man of me.

Uncle Kit told me that I was old enough now to do a man's work, and that I was able to fill a man's place in every respect. He took his purse from his pocket, counted me out one hundred and fifty dollars in gold; and not until then had I known that he had ordered me a fifty dollar suit of buckskin made at Taos, the fall before; and not until then had he told me that he was to be married on the tenth of July, and wanted Johnnie West and I to be there without fail. I asked him who he was going to be married to. He said her name was Rosita Cavirovious. She was a Mexican girl who lived in Taos. I did not know the lady but was acquainted with some of her brothers. I told Uncle Kit that I would surely be there.

Uncle Kit and Jim Beckwith now started for Taos, and Johnnie West and I began making preparations to start in hunting for Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux, as per contract nearly one year before.

Col. Bent said that he was very glad that we were ready to start in hunting, as they had been out of fresh meat at least half of the time that spring.

In that country bacon was high, being worth from twenty-five to thirty cents per pound, and early in the spring higher even than that.

This spring, as usual, there were some thirty trappers congregated at Bent's Fort, apparently to eat and drink up what money they had earned during the winter.