n death;
for no remains of a woman were found with the others lying in the
canyon.

The terrible news of the massacre was conveyed to Taos, where were
stationed several companies of the Second United States Dragoons,
commanded by Major William Greer; but as the weather had grown intensely
cold and stormy since the date of the massacre, it took nearly a
fortnight for the terrible story to reach there. The Major acted
promptly when appealed to to go after and punish the savages concerned
in the outrage, but several days more were lost in getting an expedition
ready for the field. It was still stormy while the command was preparing
for its work; but at last, one bright morning, in a piercing cold wind,
five troops of the dragoons, commanded by Major Greer in person, left
their comfortable quarters to attempt the rescue of Mrs. White, her
child, and nurse.

Kit Carson, "Uncle Dick" Wooten, Joaquin Leroux, and Tom Tobin were
the principal scouts and guides accompanying the expedition, having
volunteered their services to Major Greer, which he had gladly accepted.

The massacre having occurred three weeks before the command had
arrived at the canyon of the Canadian, and snow having fallen almost
continuously ever since, the ground was deeply covered, making it almost
impossible to find the trail of the savages leading out of the gorge. No
one knew where they had established their winter camp--probably hundreds
of miles distant on some tributary of the Canadian far to the south.

Carson, Wooton, and Leroux, after scanning the ground carefully at every
point, though the snow was ten inches deep, in a way of which only men
versed in savage lore are capable, were rewarded by discovering certain
signs, unintelligible to the ordinary individual[31]--that the murderers
had gone south out of the canyon immediately after completing their
bloody work, and that their camp was somewhere on the river, but how far
off none could tell.

The command followed up the trail discovered by the scouts for nearly
four hundred miles. Early one morning when that distance had been
rounded, and just as the men were about to break camp preparatory to
the day's march, Carson went out on a little reconnoissance on his own
account, as he had noticed a flock of ravens hovering in the air when he
first got out of his blankets at dawn, which was sufficient indication
to him that an Indian camp was located somewhere in the vicinity; for
that ominous bird