CHAPTER XVI.

SILAS ROPER, THE GUIDE.

SURPRISED at the abruptness with which Sanders had deserted him, and at the unmistakable signs of rage and alarm he exhibited, Julian stood looking after his retreating form until it disappeared from view, and then directed his gaze down the street.

He could see nothing there calculated to frighten Sanders or any body else. There were but few men in sight, and these appeared to have no hostile intentions toward any one, for they were going quietly about their business, and did not seem to be aware that there were such persons as Julian and his late companion in existence.

Among them was a man who attracted the boy’s attention at once; and he also seemed to be an object of interest to all in his immediate vicinity, for every one who passed him turned to look back at him. He was the nearest approach to a giant that Julian had ever seen. Sanders, large and powerful as he was, would have looked like a boy beside him. He was as straight as an arrow, and moved along as if he were set on springs. He was dressed in a complete suit of buckskin, even to his moccasins, and carried the never-failing knife and revolver about his waist. But little could be seen of his face, for it was covered with immense whiskers, which reached almost to his belt. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his hunting-shirt, looking carelessly about him, as if he had determined upon nothing in particular.

Arriving at the steps where Julian stood, he seated himself upon them, and drawing a pipe from a little pouch which hung at his belt, prepared to fill up for a smoke.

Julian watched all his movements with interest, and felt a strange kind of awe in the man’s presence. He was certainly a trapper, and he must be a daring one, too, unless his looks belied him, for he would have been picked out among a thousand as a man who was not to be daunted by any physical dangers. He must know all about life on the frontier, of course, and perhaps he could give some information concerning the wagon train of which Sanders had spoken.

“Sir!” said Julian, as soon as this thought passed through his mind.

“Wal!” returned the trapper, raising a pair of honest-looking brown eyes, which seemed to invite the boy’s confidence.

“Can you tell me whether or not a wagon train left this place yesterday for the mountains?” asked Julian.

“I can.”

“I understood there was,” continued Julian, after waiting for the man to say something else.

“Then you understood what wasn’t so.”

“Was there none left?”

“No.”

“What object could Sanders have had in view in telling me that falsehood?” thought the boy. “When does the next one start?”

“To-day.”

“How soon?”

“To onct.”

“Where from?”

“From a place ’bout a mile from here, right up this street.”

“Could I go with it?”

“I reckon. Want to go to Californy?”

“No, sir; I am bound for the mountains.”

“For the Peak?”

“No, sir; for the _mountains_.”

“Wal, wharabouts in the mountains?”

“Whereabouts?” replied Julian.

He gazed at the trapper a moment, and seating himself on the opposite end of the steps, looked down at the ground in a brown study. The question propounded to him excited a serious train of reflections in his mind. He had always spoken and thought of “the mountains” without having any very definite idea concerning them. He had imagined that when he was once safe across the plains his troubles would all be over, and that it would be a matter of no difficulty to find the home and friends of which he was in search if they were still in existence; but the trapper’s last words had opened his eyes and showed him the real magnitude of his undertaking. “Whereabouts in the mountains?”

This was a question that Julian could not answer. He remembered now to have read somewhere that the Rocky Mountains covered an area of 980,000 square miles. How could he hope to find his father in such a wilderness as that? He might be in Mexico, or he might be in Oregon—Julian didn’t know. After all he had endured and accomplished, the obstacles that lay in his path were but just beginning to make themselves manifest. This reflection for the moment utterly unnerved him, and tears began to fall from his eyes. The trapper removed his pipe from his mouth long enough to say:

“Cryin’?”

“I know it is unmanly,” replied Julian, “but I can’t help it. I have been through some difficulties lately, but I can see that there are worse ones before me. But I’ll never give up—never!”

“Stick to that allers,” said the trapper, now beginning to show some interest in what the boy had to say. “Never-give-up has carried many a feller through the wust kind of scrapes. Got any friends out West?”

“Yes, sir—or, rather, I had a few years ago; but I don’t know where to find them. Did you ever hear of Major Mortimer?”

“I b’lieve I’ve heerd his name spoke.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“I can’t jest say I do exactly. Thar’s only two or three men who can tell whar he is now, but I know whar he used to live.”

“He is my father.”

“_I know it._”

“You do?” cried Julian. He looked at the man in utter bewilderment, and arose hastily to his feet. “Good-day, sir,” said he. “I am obliged to you for the information you gave me about that wagon train.”

The trapper made no reply. He took his pipe out of his mouth and looked after the boy as he jumped off the steps and hurried down the street, and when he disappeared he arose, thrust his hands in his pockets and sauntered after him. What would Julian have thought if he had known that he was running away from the only friend he had east of the mountains?

“I will have nothing to do with any one who has ever seen or heard of me,” soliloquized the boy, as he hurried along, looking into the different stores he passed. “How does it come, I wonder, that so many men whom I never saw before know me? I am going to depend upon myself until I am satisfied that I am out of danger. If Sanders makes his appearance again I will send him about his business. I will go out with that wagon train, and perhaps before I reach the mountains I shall find some man who doesn’t know me, and who can give me the information I want. This is the place I am looking for.”

He stopped in front of a store, where a boy about his own age was at work taking down the shutters. It appeared to be a sort of variety store, for clothing and furnishing goods were displayed in one of the windows, and weapons and saddlery in the other.

Julian entered, and when he came out again, a quarter of an hour afterward, he had made as great a change in his appearance as Sanders did during the short time he remained in the Hunter’s Home. He was dressed in a full Mexican suit, which the polite and attentive clerk had made him believe was just the thing to wear during a journey across the plains, and in the saddle-bags, which he carried over his shoulder, was another and a finer suit of the same description, as well as a small supply of powder and lead, a brace of revolvers, and several other articles of which he thought he might stand in need. On his arm he carried a poncho—a rubber blanket with a hole in the center—which was to be used in lieu of an umbrella in rainy weather.

When he came out and bent his steps toward the hotel, a tall fellow in buckskin, who was leaning against an awning on the opposite side of the street, straightened up and followed after him. When he sat down to his breakfast the same man walked through the hall, and looked in at the dining-room; and when, after paying his bill at the hotel, he came out with all his weapons and luggage, and sprung upon his horse, the man in buckskin disappeared down a neighboring street, and presently came back again, mounted on a large cream-colored mustang, and rode in pursuit of Julian.

Our hero found that the information the strange trapper had given him concerning the wagon train was correct. The emigrants had been encamped on a common a short distance from the hotel, and when Julian came up with them they were all on the move. The road in advance of him was dotted with white wagon-covers as far as his eyes could reach. It was a novel and interesting sight to him, and he soon forgot his troubles in watching what was going on around him. The day that he had thought of and lived for so long had arrived at last, and he was fairly on his way to the mountains. The road the emigrants intended to follow might not lead him to his home, but what of that? It was enough for him to know that it crossed the mountains somewhere.

Billy, being in high mettle, insisted on going ahead, and his rider allowing him a free rein, was carried at a swinging gallop along the entire length of the train until he arrived at the foremost wagons. The emigrants all seemed to be in excellent spirits, and Julian heard them laughing and talking with one another as he dashed by. On the way he passed several boys, who were racing their horses along the road, now and then stopping to call back to their parents and friends in the wagons. Their merriment had an effect upon Julian. It made him contrast their situation with his own. In all that wagon train there was no one to greet him, no one who knew how he longed for a word of sympathy and encouragement from somebody, and no one who cared for him or his affairs.

“But I am free!” said the boy, who was not long in finding some crumbs of comfort with which to solace himself. “I can go where I please, and there is no Jack Bowles to dog my footsteps and beat me with his rawhide. I can eat, sleep and walk about in perfect security, knowing that there is no one to molest me. I am leaving behind me Richard Mortimer, Sanders and all the rest of my secret enemies, and the dangers and difficulties I have yet to encounter will be such as I know how to meet. If I do not find my home and friends before my money is gone, I have a good horse and rifle, and I know how to shoot and trap. I shall be able to take care of myself.”

There were several men riding in company in advance of the train, and not wishing to intrude upon them, Julian fell in behind, and during the whole of that forenoon never spoke a word to any one. When noon came the wagons began to draw off into the woods one by one, and in a quarter of an hour the entire train had come to a halt, and preparations for dinner were actively going on. Julian, hungry and lonely, would have been glad of an invitation to join one of the happy parties that were scattered about among the trees, but no one noticed him. He dismounted a little apart from the rest of the emigrants, and after tying his horse to a tree, spread his poncho upon the ground, and was about to begin an attack upon the small supply of crackers and cheese stowed away in his saddle-bags, when some one spoke to him.

“Wal, my lad, its grub time,” said a familiar voice.

Julian looked up, and there, leaning upon a rifle that an ordinary man could scarcely have raised to his shoulder, stood the tall trapper whom he had met in the streets of St. Joseph. At the sight of him his old fears were revived with redoubled force.

“Here’s one enemy I haven’t left behind me,” thought Julian. “I must still be on the lookout for treachery. I know it is dinner-time,” he added, aloud; “and I am just about to take advantage of it.”

“In what way? I don’t see that you have got anything to eat.”

“I have, nevertheless,” replied the boy, laying his hand on his saddle-bags.

“Do you keep it in thar?” asked the trapper, with a laugh. “How long do you think it’ll last you?”

“A day or two; and when it is gone my rifle must supply my larder. There must be an abundance of game on the plains.”

“Humph! That shows how much you know ’bout prairie life. Sometimes thar’s game an’ sometimes thar hain’t. An’ sometimes when we know thar’s plenty of buffaler an’ antelope only a little ways off, we can’t go out to shoot ’em fur fear of the Injuns. What’ll you do under them sarcumstances?”

Julian didn’t know. He would be obliged to go to bed hungry, he supposed.

“Yes, an’ you’ll go to bed hungry many a night afore you see the mountains, if this is the way you’re goin’ to do business,” continued the trapper. “We can do better’n this fur you. Come into our mess; we’d be glad to have you.”

Julian thanked the man for his kind offer, but took time to consider before replying. The interest his new acquaintance seemed to take in his welfare made him suspicious, and he wanted to keep as far away from him as possible. But, after all, if the trapper had any designs upon him, what difference would it make whether Julian remained at one end of the wagon train or the other? It would certainly be better to make sure of plenty to eat during the journey than to depend upon his rifle; and, if he saw anything in the trapper’s actions to confirm his suspicions, he could easily avoid being left alone with him.

He arose and picked up his saddle-bags, and the trapper, who had waited patiently for an answer to his invitation, shouldered his rifle and led the way through the woods, presently stopping at one of the wagons, beside which a party of three men were seated on the ground eating their dinner.

These looked curiously at Julian as he came up, and seemed to be waiting for the trapper to tell why he had brought him there; but as he did not appear to think that any explanation was necessary, they made way for the boy, and waving their hands toward the plates containing the corn-bread and bacon, went on with their conversation.

The trapper soon satisfied his appetite, and mounting his horse, which was grazing close by, rode off, leaving Julian alone with the three men. He listened to their conversation, and soon learned that they were from an Eastern State, that they had never been West before, and that their destination was the gold mines of California.

This silenced some of Julian’s fears, and finally, venturing to inquire who the trapper was, he was told that his name was Silas Roper, and that he was the chief man of the wagon train—the guide. The men were enthusiastic in their praises of him, and if they told the truth, as Julian hoped they did, Silas was one in whom he could well afford to confide.

Our hero then explained how he came to be brought into the mess, following up the story with as much of his history as he was willing the men should know, and their hearty words of sympathy and welcome placed him at his ease at once, and almost made him believe that at last he had found real friends.

While the dinner was in progress a horseman came leisurely down the road, gazing earnestly at every group of emigrants he passed, as if he were searching for some one. When he reached the place where Julian and the three men were seated, he drew rein with an exclamation of surprise and satisfaction, and sat motionless in his saddle, staring at them as if debating some point in his mind. Having at last decided upon something he rode up to the party and accosted them.