strips of buffalo meat to be cured by drying in
the sun. Every thing was prepared over night for the commencement of
operations in the early dawn. The best marksmen were selected for hunters.
They were to go into the prairie, shoot the game and bring it in. The rest
were detailed to cut up the meat and hang it on the ropes to dry. After
it was sufficiently dried, they were to take it down, and pack it closely
in bundles for transportation.

These were halcyon days, and abundant was the harvest of game which these
bold reapers were gathering. During the days thus spent, in shooting the
game and curing the meat, the hunters lived upon the fat of the land. The
tongue and liver of the buffalo, and the peculiar fat, found along the
spine are deemed great delicacies.

In a few days a sufficient supply had been obtained to load all their pack
animals. So heavily were they laden that their homeward journey was very
slow. They were followed by a foe, of whom they had not the slightest
conception. A band of Blackfeet Indians had discerned them from the far
distance with their keen eyes. Keeping carefully concealed, they watched
every movement of the unconscious hunters. When the party commenced its
return they dogged their steps; in the darkness creeping near their
encampment at night, watching for an opportunity to stampede their animals
and to rob them of their treasure. Though Kit Carson had no suspicion that
any savages were on his trail, his constitutional caution baffled all
their cunning.

The fort was reached in safety, and the abundance which they brought was
hailed with rejoicing. The party of hunters encamped just outside the
pickets of the fort, where there was good pasturage for their animals, and
where they could watch them. The inmates of the fort had fenced in a large
field or barnyard which they called a _corral_. Into this yard at night
they drove their animals, from the prairie, and placed a guard over them.
At any time a band of savages might, like an apparition, come shrieking
down upon the animals to bear them away in the terrors of a stampede, or
might silently, in midnight gloom, steal towards them and lead them
noiselessly away one by one.

Two or three nights after the arrival of the hunters at the fort, all the
horses and mules were driven, as usual, into the enclosure; the bars were
put up and a sentinel was placed on duty. It so happened that the
sentinel, that night, was an inexperienced hand; a n