The Ferguson Rifle by Louis L’Amour Page B

I believe it. But if it were my father, he would have come into camp. He would have spoken to me.”
    â€œA ghost,” Davy insisted, “you’ve seen a ghost, man.”
    â€œBah!” Bob Sandy said roughly. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. He had a dream … or a nightmare, if you like. I’ve had them myself, and often enough. But mine were mostly with Indians in them, and I had a many in the years after my family were killed by those screamin’, howlin’ redskins.”
    â€œAfter this,” Talley said, “we’ll post a guard, tired though we may be. I want no man, nor ghost either, for that matter, coming into our camp unknown to us.”
    Our plans had been made, and now we went among the Cheyennes to trade for extra dried meat, and to make our preparations for the north. We would ride north, skirting the eastern face of the mountains, and once past them we would turn east of the mountains toward the villages.
    â€œWe will be coming out on the open plains in the winter,” Kemble said. “It’s asking for trouble unless we’ve more luck than we deserve.”
    â€œI can take them alone,” I said.
    Isaac Heath turned on me. “Are you more gallant than we are? I think not, Scholar. We will go with you, for alone you would never make it through. No offense intended.”
    â€œI take none. I know it would be difficult.”
    â€œWe’ll trap on the way,” Ebitt said. “We must have something for supplies for another season.”
    My eyes went from one to the other, knowing what this meant to the lot of them. This was their life. To me it might be my life, but also might be only an interlude. I was not dependent upon furs as they were. A little money remained in an eastern bank, and a profession whenever I wished to return … if I ever did.
    â€œThank you. I appreciate this, and so does Miss Falvey.”
    â€œI do!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I
do
!”
    And so we prepared ourselves for the march to the north, and said nothing more of it.
    Yet I remembered the tall man with the pale face. Of one thing I was sure. He had been no ghost.

CHAPTER 11
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    T HERE WAS NO immediate taking off. There was planning to do, and equipment to put together. I sat long with Walks-By-Night and talked of trails, of game, of mountains. He had often hunted far to the north, and had gone north on raids against the Crow.
    Finally, I showed him the map. After some thought, he recognized the place and gave me clear directions. Of this, I said nothing.
    Meanwhile Walks-By-Night presented me with a lean, powerful Appaloosa, a horse he swore to me was the finest buffalo horse he had known. My own horse went to Feather Man, who traded me a buckskin and a zebra dun for packhorses.
    Finally, we put our packs together. The Cheyennes had little food to spare, but they let us have what they could, and it was noble of them, with a long winter to come.
    The morning was frosty but clear when we started out, a few stars still hanging in the sky. Solomon Talley led off, riding beside Degory Kemble, Sandy and Shanagan followed, and then the dozen packhorses, followed by Lucinda and I, with Ulibarri riding herd on the packhorses. Cusbe Ebitt and Isaac Heath brought up the rear.
    We rode out, down into the riverbed and along it at a good clip. We wanted distance between ourselves and the encampment, hoping our disappearance would not soon be known.
    We no longer feared pursuit by Captain Fernandez—we were going north, clearly out of Spanish territory—unless he was after the girl. And we did not think it was he who had followed her from Santa Fe.
    Leaves were falling from the trees that morning, yet many had only turned red and gold with autumn. We left our friendly stream bed and turned up another, strange to us, but one that flowed down from the north.
    Lucinda was silent, reluctant to go, yet appreciating the fact that we had no