“Wall, Kit won’t stay long,” drawled Ike――his first remark after hearing the facts. “He’ll find things are different; the frontier’s grown up with people, an’ he’ll feel lonesome, ’mongst ’em. He’ll be coming back to Touse, right soon.” Indeed, according to opinion ’twas time for his return already; and in mid-afternoon of the day after their own arrival, Oliver, upon the front porch of the Carson house, his attention attracted to a bustle and to the hurrying figure of Ike, thought that Kit might be in town or at least at Bent’s Fort. Through the plaza hastened tall Ike; straight-footed, slightly bow-legged, carrying, as customary, his long rifle. “Get yore outfit ready for the trail ag’in,” he bade, quickly, with scarce a pause. “Word from Kit says to meet him at Fort Laramie, pronto! Leave to-morrow.” “All right,” answered Oliver, astonished, but knowing better than to delay Ike for foolish questions. Still, this was most sudden and unexpected. What was Kit Carson doing up at Fort Laramie, on the Oregon Trail, when he should have been at Bent’s Fort, on the Santa Fé Trail? Oliver set out after information. The first of the company whom he encountered was Mariano Medino, the Mexican, squatting and filling a powder-horn in a doorway. “Ike has seen you?” queried Mariano. “Yes. What’s news?” “Ah, that Keet Carson, he say ‘Come to Laramie,’ an’ we come. That all I know,” answered Mariano, busily. “Who brought the word?” “Dos (two) Injuns. See? Over there,” directed Mariano, with nod of head. Oliver looked, and noted a little knot of towns-people――mainly Mexicans, shoulders and heads shrouded in serapes or native blankets――standing before the Bent, St. Vrain & Co. local warehouse and gazing at the doorway. So across the plaza he trudged. The knot was scrutinizing, without much comment, two Indians who leaned, stolid and unaffected and haughty, against the doorway posts. They were Indians of lighter coppery complexion than the Kiowas or the Apaches or the Utes; they were as light as a Cheyenne, and one had a scraggly moustache of black hairs. By this, and by the beading of their shirts and the shape of their moccasins, Oliver (a mountain-man) knew them to be Indians of a strange tribe. A voice at his elbow interrupted his examination. “Those are Delawares, boy.” It was Bill Williams who spoke――Bill Williams, sometimes called “Preacher” Williams; not a Carson man, but an odd old trapper who from his lone trail occasionally appeared in Taos. “Eastern Injuns they be, who war moved by the government into the Injun country ’long the Missouri frontier. Big hunters an’ fighters, but don’t often get to the mountains.” “Are they the express from Kit?” “They are the runners from Kit. Sent ’em from the mouth o’ the Kaw, or Kansas Landing ’bove Independence. Understand they came through, the seven hundred miles, in ’leven days, which is good travel.”