trouble all at once, child-like, and
replied, 'I do, Uncle John, can I?'

"After we'd camped there 'bout three hours, the cattle full of grass and
all laying down chewing their cud, we concluded to move on and make a
few miles before it grow'd too hot, and to get further from the Ingins,
which we expected would tackle us again, as soon as they could get back
from their camp, where we felt sure they had gone for reinforcements.

"While the Mexicans was yoking up, me and Thorpe rigged an easy saddle
on one of the mules, out of blankets, for the kid to ride on, and when
we was all ready to pull out, I histed him on, and you never see a
youngster so tickled.

"We had to travel mighty slow; couldn't make more than eighteen miles a
day with oxen, and that was in two drives, one early in the morning, and
one in the evening when it was cool, a laying by and grazing when it
was hot. We Americans walked along the Trail, and mighty slow walking
it was; 'bout two and a half miles an hour. I kept close to Paul, for I
began to set a good deal of store by him; he seemed to cotton to me more
than he did to the rest, wanting to stick near me most of the time as he
rid on the mule. I wanted to find out something 'bout his folks, where
they'd come from; so that when we got to Independence, perhaps I could
turn him over to them as ought to have him; though in my own mind I was
ornery enough to wish I might never find them, and he'd be obliged to
stay with me. The boy was too young to tell what I wanted to find out;
all I could get out of him was they'd been living in Santa Fe since
he was a baby, and that his papa was a preacher. I 'spect one of them
missionaries 'mong the heathenish Greasers. He said they was going back
to his grandma's in the States, but he could not tell where. I couldn't
get nothing out of them Mexican bull-whackers neither--what they know'd
wasn't half as much as the kid--and I had to give it up.

"Well, we kept moving along without having any more trouble for a week;
them Ingins never following us as we 'lowed they would. I really enjoyed
the trip such as I never had before. Paul he was so 'fectionate and
smart, that he 'peared to fill a spot in my heart what had always been
hollow until then. When he'd got tired of riding the mule or in one
of the wagons, he'd come and walk along the Trail with me, a picking
flowers, chasing the prairie-owls and such, until his little legs 'bout
played out, when I'd hist him on