Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains | Page 6

gave me courage to ask his name. He told me that his name was Kit Carson, and that by calling he was a hunter and trapper, and asked me how I would like to learn his trade.
I assured him that I was willing to do anything honorable for a living and that I thought I would very much like to be a hunter and trapper. He said he would take me with him and I was entirely delighted. Often I had wished to own a gun, but had never thought of shooting anything larger than a squirrel or rabbit. I was ready to start at once, and asked him when he would go.
Smilingly he told me not to be in a hurry, and asked me where Mrs. Becket lived. I told him as nearly as I could, and again asked when he thought we would leave St. Louis. I was fearful that he would change his mind about taking me with him. I didn't know him then so well as afterward. I came to learn that his slightest word was his bond.
But visions of Mr. Drake, an old negro woman and a hornet's nest, still haunted me and made me overanxious. I wanted to get as far out of their reach as possible and still remain on the earth.
Mr. Carson laughed in a quiet and yet much amused way and said:
"You must learn to not do anything until you are good and ready, and there are heaps of things to do before we can start out. Now let's go and see Mrs. Becket."
So I piloted him to the widow's home, which, as near as I can remember, was about four blocks from the hotel. Mr. Carson being able to speak French first-rate, had a talk with Mrs. Becket concerning me. The story she told him, corresponding with that which I had told him, he concluded that I had given him nothing but truth, and then he aked Mrs. Becket what my bill was. She replied that she had just taken me in because I was a poor boy, until such time as I could find employment, and that her charges were nothing. He then asked her how long I had been with her, and being told that it was four days, he begged her to take five dollars, which she finally accepted.
I took my little budget of clothes and tearfully bidding Mrs. Becket and Henry good-bye, started back to the hotel with my new guardian, and I was the happiest boy in the world, from that on, so long as I was a boy.
On the way back to the hotel Mr. Carson stopped with me at a store and he bought me a new suit of clothes, a hat and a pair of boots, for I was barefooted and almost bareheaded. Thus dressed I could hardly realize that I was the Will Drannan of a few hours before.
That was the first pair of boots I had ever owned. Perhaps, dear reader, you do not know what that means to a healthy boy of fifteen.
It means more than has ever been written, or ever will be.
I was now very ready to start out hunting, and on our way to the hotel I asked Mr. Carson if he did not think we could get away by morning, but he told me that to hunt I would probably need a gun, and we must wait until he could have one made for me, of proper size for a boy.
The next day we went to a gun factory and Mr. Carson gave orders concerning the weapon, after which we returned to the hotel. We remained in St. Louis about three weeks and every day seemed like an age to me. At our room in the hotel Mr. Carson would tell me stories about hunting and trapping, and notwithstanding the intense interest of the stories the days were longer, because I so much wished to be among the scenes he talked of, and my dreams at night were filled with all sorts of wonderful animals, my fancy's creation from what Mr. Carson talked about. I had never fired a gun in my life and I was unbearably impatient to get my hands on the one that was being made for me.
During the wait at St. Louis, Henry Becket was with me nearly all the time, and when we were not haunting the gun factory, we were, as much as possible, in Mr. Carson's room at the hotel, listening to stories of adventure on the plains and among the mountains.
I became, at once, very much attached to Mr. Carson and I thought there was not another man in the United States equal to him--and there never has been, in his line. Besides, since the death of