“That’s just it,” said St. Vrain, sagely. “It’s all ready made. You had no hand in it. Here is something you can do yourself. Your father has a partner, hasn’t he? And you can see him from time to time? Many have made their pile in the fur business and then retired. But they’ve helped to build up the country and the trade meanwhile. Trade, my lad, is the life of any country. Why hasn’t this land of New Spain grown any more in the three hundred odd years since the Spanish Conquistadores found it and settled it? No trade with outside countries. That’s why. That’s what builds any country up. Trade brings in new life.” But Steven was determined. He would have to go north the day after the next, then, St. Vrain told him. He could go with Kit there, and join the party setting out from Bent’s Fort next month. They were going out to Leavenworth and another return caravan would follow back on the Trail in June. Steven said he would be ready to go with Kit. Twenty-four hours later he was still of the same mind. And yet there was a strange ache in his breast. He sat with St. Vrain before the big fireplace. Tall Indians from the near-by pueblo which he had passed on his first trip to Taos in the fall stood around the wall, stately men, wearing their white deerskin robes, almost as an Arab wears his burnoose. One of them came over to Steven and showed him a tiny wagon which he had wrought out of silver--a little covered wagon. Steven gave the Taos artificer twice its weight in silver for the piece; the Indian was delighted. “A silver wagon,” said St. Vrain. “That’s just a sample, silver caravans, one after another, that’s what that represents. Not only the hub and the linings of the wheels silver, but the goods inside.” He nudged Steven in an aside, for there was in the room a mixed company of Taos Indians, Mexicans from San Fernando de Taos, French trappers in the employ of the Bents, all eating, drinking, smoking. “Had you heard about the hold-up of the Yankee caravan?” Steven told him he had through Doña Katarina, upon her return from seeing her husband off on his spring round of the traps. “That’s going to make it harder for the traders this next year. We need a friend in Santa Fe, Steven, my friend.” “There’s Don Tiburcio just below,” Steven reminded him. “He wants to establish himself at Albuquerque. He has gold to invest. I have two sacks of his money for the trade.... Ah, here’s Kit.” Young Carson had come in with a swarthy Frenchman, a lean, flashing hunter who might have been one of the Indians themselves except for his gayety and his mustachios. He laughed and sang as he flung down his pack and soon was tearing at his meat with gleaming teeth, half starved from the long trail just covered. “Thou, Etienne,” said St. Vrain in French, “when will you have tired of living the life of the _engagé_, hunting, trapping? For three winters now, is it not?”