Chief of Scouts | Page 3

to make Bent's Fort, and we wanted to get
there before the Fourth of July. Just as we had got our animals packed
and every thing in readiness to start, a herd of Buffalo commenced
crossing the river about a half a mile above our camp. The reader will
understand that the Buffalo always cross the river where it is shallow,
their instinct teaching them that where the water is shallow, there is a
rock bottom, and in crossing these places they avoid quicksand. This

was the only crossing in fifteen miles up or down the river. We did not
get to move for twenty-four hours. It seems unreasonable to tell the
number of Buffalo that crossed the river in those twenty-four hours.
After crossing the river a half a mile at the north of the ford, they struck
the foot hill; and one could see nothing but a moving, black mass, as far
as the eye could see.
I do not remember how long we were going from there to Bent's Fort,
but we got there on the second of July, 1847, and every white man that
was within three hundred miles was there, which were just sixteen. At
this present time, I presume there are two or three hundred thousand
within the same distance from Bent's Fort, and that is only fifty-eight
years ago! In view of the great change that has taken place in the last
half century, what will the next half century bring? The reader must
remember that the increase must be three to one to what it was at that
time.
After staying at Bent's Fort eight days we pulled out for "Taos,"
Carson's home. He remained at Taos, which is in New Mexico, until
early in the fall, about the first of October, which is early autumn in
New Mexico; then we started for our trapping ground, which was on
the head of the Arkansas river, where Beaver was as numerous as rats
are around a wharf.
We were very successful that winter in trapping. It was all new to me, I
had never seen a Beaver, or a Beaver trap. Deer, Elk, and Bison, which
is a species of Buffalo, was as plentiful in that country at that time as
cattle is now on the ranch. I really believe that I have seen more deer in
one day than there is in the whole State of Colorado at the present time.
In the autumn, just before the snow commences to fall, the deer leave
the high mountains, and seek the valleys, and also the Elk and Bison;
no game stays in the high mountains but the Mountain Sheep, and he is
very peculiar in his habits. He invariably follows the bluffs of streams.
In winter and summer, his food is mostly moss, which he picks from
the rocks; he eats but very little grass. But there is no better meat than
the mountain sheep. In the fall, the spring lambs will weigh from
seventy-five to a hundred pounds, and are very fat and as tender as a

chicken; but this species of game is almost extinct in the United States;
I have not killed one in ten years.
We stayed in our camp at the head of the Arkansas river until sometime
in April, then we pulled out for Bent's Fort to dispose of our pelts. We
staid at the Fort three days. The day we left the Fort, we met a runner
from Col. Freemont with a letter for Carson. Freemont wanted Carson
to bring a certain amount of supplies to his camp and then to act as a
guide across the mountains to Monterey, California. The particulars of
the contract between Freemont and Carson I never knew, but I know
this much, that when we got to Freemont's camp, we found the hardest
looking set of men that I ever saw. They had been shut up in camp all
winter, and the majority of them had the scurvy, which was brought on
by want of exercise and no vegetable food. The most of the supplies we
took him were potatoes and onions, and as soon as we arrived in camp
the men did not wait to unpack the animals, but would walk up to an
animal and tear a hole in a sack and eat the stuff raw the same as if it
was apples.
In a few days the men commenced to improve in looks and health.
Uncle Kit had them to exercise some every day, and in a short time we
were on the road for the Pacific Coast. We had no trouble until we
crossed the Main Divide of the Rocky Mountains. It was on a stream
called the "Blue," one of the tributaries of the Colorado river.
We