licenses to trade with the
Indians who live about the copper mines. With these licenses as
protection papers, they returned to where the skins were concealed.
Having once more recovered their fur, they returned with it to Santa
Fe. The deserted mines of New Mexico show incontrovertible signs
of having been successfully and extensively worked, at some remote
period, for various kinds of metals. They have proved a knotty
historical problem to many an investigating mind; for their authentic
history has fallen, and probably will ever remain in oblivion. It
may have been that about a century ago the Spaniards, with Indian
assistants, worked them; and the savages becoming hostile to their
employers, in some sudden fit of frenzy may have massacred the
Spaniards. There is a legendary story circulating, similar to the
traditions of the Indians, giving this explanation. The more probable
hypothesis, however, is that the Indians themselves, many centuries in
the past, were versed to some extent in the art of mining, and carried
on the business in these mines; but from indolence or, to them,
uselessness of the metals, the work was abandoned, and their
descendants failed to obtain the knowledge which their ancestors
possessed. These mines, and those which exist nearer to the large
towns, will some day render New Mexico a profitable and rich field for
the learned antiquary.

The ruse which Mr. Young found absolutely necessary to employ, in
order to blind the Mexican authorities, succeeded so well, that when
the fur arrived at Santa Fe, every one considered the trappers had
made a very good trade. The amount of beaver thus brought in amounted
to two thousand pounds. The market price was twelve dollars the pound.
The proceeds, therefore, of the entire trip were nearly twenty-four
thousand dollars. The division of this handsome sum gave to each man
several hundred dollars. It was during the month of April, 1830, that
Mr. Young's party again reached the town of Taos. Here they disbanded,
having completed their enterprise. Like as Jack, when he returns
from his battles with old ocean, having a pocket well lined with hard
earnings, fails not to plunge into excess, with the determination to
make up for the pleasure lost by years of toil, the brave mountaineers
courted merrymaking. From their own accounts, they passed a short
time gloriously. This similarity of disposition between trappers and
sailors, in regard to pleasure's syren cup and