He found conversing with Mr. Morley, his father’s chief clerk, a dark-bearded Frenchman in the habit of the _voyageurs_ who came down the river at the helms of their fur-laden bateaux. The man’s appearance and dress fascinated Steven. He waited around until Monsieur Delmar was presented to him. The Frenchman represented a group of Western traders and was arranging for a large shipment of merchandise of a commoner sort than that usually handled by Mercer and Co. It was for the far Western trade, he said, in Mexican territory. The customer told of the commerce that had grown up during the past four years with New Spain, that province of Mexico; a vast, far territory, lying a good five months’ travel away, beyond the Rocky Mountains. Great caravans were crossing the continent every six months, he said, carrying thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise into New Mexico, to the Villa de Santa Fe. Last year the government had built a new fort way up above St. Louis, upon the Missouri River, just to protect the people from the Indians. The route to the West lay from this Fort Leavenworth in the Kansas country, to Santa Fe in Mexico--a three months’ journey, more or less. “So soon as this goods I buy now reach the place from which they start,” Monsieur Delmar explained, “the caravan will set out. Many wagon, maybe twenty, thirty, forty--and mules. A big train, so to be safe against those Indian who fight across the plain. “This year my fr’en’, Colonel St. Vrain,” he told them, “build with the brothers Bent a large fort and trade station in that Mexican country, on the River Arkansas; safety is there for _les voyageurs_.” The Frenchman was eager to be on the return. He had come down the river from St. Louis at the rate of from fifty to a hundred miles a day, borne on the bosom of powerful currents, but it would take longer than usual to ascend the river, swollen as it was with the melting snow and rain. Under the fire of Steven’s eager questions the Frenchman expanded on his theme. It was the tale of the Trail that he told--the Santa Fe Trail that watered with blood the growth of an empire to the west. Attacked by savage red men on the long overland journey, oftentimes at the end of the Trail thrown into prison by hostile Spanish governors, still they came, trader and trapper. “Some day, by Gar! we see who own that land.” Steven sat entranced while his carriage and horses waited below. This was better than stories of the past; it was going on right now. This was adventure, a life for men. This was a conquest that lured him. He knew then that he must ask his father to send him with a shipment of goods across the plains. “Could I join the caravan that will leave this spring?” The request came almost before he realized it.