think he was the proudest Indian I ever saw; he jumped
up and shouted, "Hy-you-scu-scum, white man," which meant "Good white
man."

The Indians all shook hands with us and then mounted their horses and
were gone. We now pulled out on our long and dangerous trip to Taos, New
Mexico, and strange to say, we never missed a camping ground that the
Indians had marked out for us, until we reached the head of the Arkansas
river, and the beauty of it was, we had good grass and good water at
every camping place, which was very essential for ourselves and our
horses.

When we struck the head of the Arkansas river we considered ourselves
out of danger of all hostile Indians. Besides, we knew every foot of the
ground we had to travel over from here to Taos, New Mexico. We camped
one night on the river, down below where Leadville stands now, and I
never saw so many huckleberries at one place as I saw there. After we
had our horses unpacked and staked out to grass, I said to the boys,
"Now you go and pick berries, and I will try and find some meat for
supper." I did not go far when looking up on a high bluff I saw a band
of mountain sheep. I noticed they had not seen me yet and were coming
directly towards me. When they got in gun-shot, I fired and killed a
half-grown sheep, and he did not stop kicking until he was nearly at my
feet. This was the first mountain sheep I had ever killed, and it was as
fine a piece of meat as I ever ate, and until this day, mountain sheep
is my favorite wild meat. This was one of the nights to be remembered,
fine fresh meat, and ripe huckleberries, what luxuries, for the wilds to
produce.

In a few days we reached Taos, and here I met my old friend Jim Bridger.
After laying around a few days and resting up, Jonnie West said to me,
"Will, what are we going to do this winter? You are like me, you can't
lay around without going wild."

I said, "That's so, Jonnie. Let's go and hunt up Jim Bridger, and ask
him what he is going to do this winter."

We went to the house where Jim was boarding and we found him in one of
his talkative moods. We asked him what he proposed doing this winter; he
said, "I am going out a trapping, and I want you boys to go with me."

I asked him where he was going to trap, and he said he thought he would
trap on the head of the Cache-la-Poudre, and the quicker we went the
better it would be for us. "I have all the traps we will need this
winter," he said; "now you boys go to wo