NOON FOUND THE TWO RIDERS almost ten miles from the Sioux village. They were on the edge of a small stream, and Francis was only too glad when Mr. Grimes called a halt at a clearing.

“While you’re stripping and taking a bath,” the mountain man said, “I’ll scout up ahead for some meat. There’s a mesa about two miles on down where there’s usually an antelope or two.”

Francis nodded. They picketed the mules, and Mr. Grimes rode off.

Warm, with little or no breeze dancing through the cottonwoods along the stream, it was truly a day made for swimming. Francis hit the water before the mountain man was out of sight. It was cold—spring fed in the hills somewhere—but the cold only made it all the more refreshing. He played around for a while, diving and splashing in a deep pool, and then scrubbed himself, using his shirt for a washcloth.

He climbed out of the stream and let the sun dry him as he lay on his back. He’d come a long way, he thought. Not in miles—he doubted that he was much closer to Oregon than when the Pawnees had captured him. But in time and knowledge, he’d come what seemed like a thousand years. He’d seen and done more than most people did all their lives, and he was only fourteen.

Presently he was dry, so he unwrapped the buckskins from one of the mule packs on the ground. They were plain, like Mr. Grimes’s, and for the same reason. You could hide easier without a lot of colored beads to give you away. Actually, the buckskins had been made as a hunting suit for the boy he had wrestled. But they were new and hadn’t been used yet and they fit Francis. The pants stopped at his ankles and fitted tightly to his hips and legs—following the principle of most Indian dress that a belt was good for nothing but cutting into your stomach when you bent over. The buckskin shirt had one set of fringes across the chest, was open at the throat, and its bottom fell almost a foot below his waist.

Mr. Grimes had thought ahead. There were no pockets in the buckskins, so he had procured for Francis a “possibles” sack to hold his flask and shooting equipment. This hung from a strap over his shoulder. Mr. Grimes had also picked up a pair of plain, ankle-high moccasins for him.

When Francis finished dressing, he looked nothing like the boy who had left St. Louis with the wagon train. The buckskins, even new, gave him the appearance of belonging more to the plains than to a settlement. His face was weathered and tan, and his hair—usually kept short by his mother—fell well below his ears.