“No?” The oldish face wrinkled into a smile. “No find ’em trail? Too bad! You don’t know me,” he added after a time.
“I’m Jesse Chisholm. My ranch is in Nations, south long way. I bring plenty horses up from Texas. I know your people. I been all across Texas from Palo Pinto to Double Mountain Fork, Buffalo Gap, Estacado; all the time I make trails.”
“Sure! She’s easy from here to Caldwell. I got fifty wagon, plenty horse, plenty mule; make ford, sometime make bridge, sometime make raft. I got some wagons for Colonel Griswold. He’s going to make big reservation for Kiowas and Comanches. Fort Sill, he’ll call ’em.”
“So you’re Jesse Chisholm?” remarked Jim Nabours after a time. “I didn’t know for sure there was no such person. Tell me, is there such a place as Aberlene?”
“Sure! I trail up Arkansas River from east, pass Wichita. I hear Ab-lene up north. Sure!”
“All the Injuns know Jesse Chisholm,” he continued. “Osage, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw—I trade ’em horse all through there. I know Shawnee Trail, through Choctaws.”
“Then tell us, friend, since you know this country pretty well, how far is it out of the Nations from here?”
“Maybe so fifty-six mile. Caldwell, he’s on line above Osages. Always grass. So you go Ab’lene?”
“You come my camp with me. I got a man in my camp, he come from Ab’lene. He come down here to find you people.”
“I dunno. He say he come south till he meets cows. He show you Ab’lene all right.”
“Len, ride back to the men and tell them to hold the herd till I come,” said Nabours, turning. “I may be late. I’ll go over and see what there is in all this.”
Without further speech, the famous half-breed trail maker led them back for a quarter of a mile or so to where he had picketed his horse. Soon they passed another uncommunicative half-breed, driving a wagon team. A few words between him and Chisholm, and the driver passed on to begin his share of the work—skinning the dead buffalo, for their hides alone.
In time they found the wagon encampment, its band of horses and mules hobbled or picketed near by; a pleasant though extraordinary sight in these surroundings. Chisholm led the way to a point a few yards distant from the main camp.
Lying on his saddle blankets under the shade of a scrubby bush, there was a white man—a bearded man of middle age, with clothing not much worn and of distinctly Northern cut. Caught by a severe attack of fever and ague, he now was in a raging fever. But at the sight of these newcomers—who presentiment told him were the very men he sought—he sprang to his feet and held out his hand.