We rode a long winding path, skirting the town of Saint Charles and finding our way along a hunting trail that had been used by moccasins for hundreds of years, winding along the southern bank of the mighty Missouri river. The water stretched and rippled, a thousand yards wide in some places, deep, quiet, and endless.   We startled jackrabbits and turkeys from the underbrush, but we left them alone. We saw a number of flatboats poling up the stream, and one being towed up on the opposite side.

Toward sundown we came to a dirt road which we moved onto, and crossed a crude wooden bridge over a creek which fed the old Mizoo, a place Kit said was called Wild Horse Creek. Every once in a while we would see a cabin built along the water's edge, as the road bent in toward the river and then veered away into the woods.

We rode in the gathering twilight, still warmed by breezes off the water, alone in our own thoughts as the shadows lengthened and the sun went down. My mind was on the life I had left behind, where I might go, and how fine it was to be in the open country on a spring evening, far from the honky-tonk and dust of Saint Louis. Finally, Kit spoke up.

"A safe harbor sounds like a fine idea fer you, to my way of thinking. And I reckon we'll find one just another piece along."

He led us off the road into a narrow wagon trail that wandered into the darkening woods, and around several bends, down a hollow and up again, and then down again in a long curving passage between old alders and elms that had stood sentinel for scores or hundreds of years. We saw, far ahead where the track curved down to the banks of another, wider creek, a faint light glimmering, and as we approached, I made out the shape of a crude but sturdy cabin, with two outbuildings around it, one a stable and the other some sort of workshop down by the shore, where the southern branch of Wild Horse poured its waters into the Missouri.

"Halloooo, the house!" Kit called out. I loosened my Enfield in its sheath nervously, unsure what sort of people to expect, or what they might know.

"Come on, then!" came an answering call, and we dismounted and walked our horses forward, leg-sore from the saddle.

A shadowy form filled the doorway, backlit by the faint glow of a fire at a stone hearth, and I stepped forward with my senses heightened and my rifle firmly gripped under my arm.

Then there was an explosion of bodies running through the night and I was swept off my feet by embraces, halloos, handshakes, and slaps on the back from the laughing and jubilant forms of Sophie, Antoine, Paul and Auguste, all of them hale and strong; and sweeping up the rear behind them, the laughing, dark eyed wondrous face of their half-Indian mother, Celeste, laughing to heaven and clapping her hands in welcome.