Francis nodded, and believed him. They wound down a narrow trail to the bottom of the canyon. It was a dark place, with sheer walls and a thick forested floor, and in the bottom was a narrow stream. Mr. Grimes put his sorrel in the middle of this, and instructed Francis to do the same with his mare.

“We go up it awhile,” he said, “and that’s how we make sure we don’t see any people.”

That “awhile” proved to be two days long. When they camped at night, Mr. Grimes didn’t allow a fire. And in the mornings, when they got ready to leave, he went around brushing out signs of their horses and making the campsite look as though they’d never been there.

At the end of the second day, they moved away from the stream. The canyon had widened into a valley more than ten miles across, and Mr. Grimes headed toward the right—or northern—edge. The forest was much thicker, the ground softer, but still he allowed no traces of their presence to remain at any campsite. His sharp eyes missed nothing, and he left no trail. Where the horses’ hooves sank into the ground, he painstakingly pushed sticks under the depressions to raise them. When a twig was broken, he rubbed dirt on the broken end to make it look old.

“It’s still pretty plain,” he explained to Francis, standing over a hoof mark that Francis couldn’t see even though he knew where it lay. “But in a couple of days, the best Kiowa tracker in the world couldn’t find us—and neither will another trapper.”

“Why are you being so careful?” Francis asked. He was tired of going slow.

“You heard the reasons just now, Mr. Tucket. One is the trappers. It’s not that I’m greedy, at least no more than the next. But there’s just enough beaver where we’re headed to keep a man going, so long as he doesn’t clean ’em out in one season. I wouldn’t clean ’em out—and neither would another good trapper …”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“Every man who traps beaver isn’t all that thoughtful. We come up here and take out a catch, and if somebody follows us who doesn’t think about next season, he might clean out the beaver—lock, stock, and prime pelt. So I’m careful. I’m not worried, Mr. Tucket, just careful.”

“All right, that’s one reason. What’s the other?”

“Indians; Crows, to be exact. We’re on the edge of their country, and they’re kind of unpredictable. We’re going to be spread up and down the canyon, traps all over, and if they find out we’re up here, they can make it mean for us. So we’re careful about them, too. Any other questions, Mr. Tucket?”

“No, sir.”