Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/66

48 moulding bullets, for we must begin making preparations to go trapping."

This was pleasant news to me, for I had laid around so long with nothing to do but skylark with those Mexican boys, that life was getting to be monotonous.

The reader will understand that in those early days we had only muzzle-loading guns, and for every one of those we had to have a pair of bullet-moulds the size of the rifle, and before starting out on an expedition it was necessary to mould enough bullets to last several weeks, if not the entire trip, and when you realize that almost any time we were liable to get into a "scrap" with the Indians, you can understand that it required a great number of these little leaden missiles to accommodate the red brethren, as well as to meet other uses.

That evening after I had gone to bed, Mr. Hughes said:

"Kit, what are you going to do with that boy?"

"What boy?" asked Uncle Kit, as if he were astonished.

"Why, Willie. What are you going to do with him while we are away trapping?"

"Why, take him along to help us, of course."

"Thunderation!" exclaimed Hughes; "he will only be a bother to us in the mountains."

I had been with Kit Carson three months, and this was the first time I had seen him, apparently, out of humor. But at Hughes' last remark, he said in a decidedly angry tone:

"Jim Hughes, I want you to understand that wherever I go that boy can go, too, if he likes."