. This
letter contained an application to the governor to send them an escort. To
convey the letter required a journey of between three and four hundred
miles through a wilderness, filled with hostile Indian bands.

Carson accepted the offer, and engaging another man, Owens, to accompany
him, rode back to Fort Bent. Here he learned that the Indians, through
whose territory he must pass, were all up in arms against the whites, and
that the journey would be full of peril. Owens refused to go farther.
Carson was not a man to turn from duty because of danger. He found no one
at the fort who could be induced to share the peril with him. He therefore
set out alone. In addition to the powerful horse which he rode, Colonel
Bent furnished him with a magnificent and fleet steed, which he led as a
reserve corps.

Very rapidly Carson pressed on his way, watching for Indian trails and
carefully avoiding all their wandering bands. From every eminence he
narrowly examined the wide and generally treeless expanse spread out
before him, in search of any sign of the foe. One afternoon he saw, far
away in the distance, an Indian encampment of many lodges, directly on his
trail. He immediately sought an out of the way place, where he might
effectually secrete himself until night. When darkness came on, he, by a
circuitous route, passed the camp of the savages and pressed rapidly on
his way. In a few days he reached Taos, much exhausted by his impetuous
ride.

He immediately called upon the mayor of the town, to whom he delivered the
dispatches, and he at once sent an agent with them, down south a distance
of about thirty miles to the governor at Santa Fe. He waited at Taos the
return of the messenger to recruit himself and horses in preparation for
his ride back. The response was that Governor Armijo had sent a hundred
Mexican dragoons to seek the caravan, and that he was about to follow with
six hundred more. We may mention in passing, that this company of one
hundred men, were attacked after a few days' march, by a large body of
Texan rangers, and were all massacred except one, who escaped on a fleet
horse.

Governor Armijo and his dragoons, as they were on their way, learned of
this massacre, and hearing exaggerated reports of the strength of the
Texan Rangers, retreated rapidly to their fortification at Santa Fe. The
governor, in the meantime, entrusted dispatches to Carson, thinking that
he, by riding express, could reach the carav