Such broken scraps of information as he had dropped,
when pieced together made a scanty narrative. His grandfather had been
one of the early French settlers of St. Louis, and his father a
prosperous fur trader there. But why he had cut loose from them he did
not vouchsafe to explain. Though he was still young--thirty
perhaps--it was evident that he had wandered far and for many years.
He knew the Indian trails of the distant Northwest, and spoke the
language of the Black Feet and Crows. He had passed a winter in the
old Spanish town of Santa Fe, and from there joined a regiment of
United States troops and done his share of fighting in the Mexican War.
Now the wanderlust was on him, he was going to California.
"Maybe to settle," he told the doctor. "If I don't wake up some
morning and feel the need to move once more."
When they reached the fort he was hailed joyously by the bourgeois
himself. The men clustered about him, and there were loud-voiced
greetings and much questioning, a rumor having filtered to his old
stamping ground that he had been killed in the siege of the Alamo. The
doctor told the bourgeois that Courant was to go with his train to
California, and the apple-cheeked factor grinned and raised his
eyebrows:
"Vous avez de la chance! He's a good guide.
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