ested of much of its dialect, so difficult to write:--

"Well, boys, it's a good many years ago, in June, 1845, if I don't
disremember. I was about forty-three, and had been in the mountains and
on the plains more than nineteen seasons. You see, I went out there in
1826. There warn't no roads, nuthin' but the Santa Fe Trail, in them
days, and Ingins and varmints.

"There was four of us. Me, Bill Comstock, Dick Curtis, and Al Thorpe.
Dick was took in by the Utes two years afterwards at the foot of the
Spanish Peaks, and Al was killed by the Apaches at Pawnee Rock, in 1847.

"We'd been trapping up on Medicine Bow for more than three years
together, and had a pile of beaver, otter, mink, and other varmint's
skins cached in the hills, which we know'd was worth a heap of money; so
we concluded to take them to the river that summer. We started from our
trapping camp in April, and 'long 'bout the middle of June reached the
Arkansas, near what is know'd as Point o' Rocks. You all know where them
is on the Trail west of Fort Dodge, and how them rocks rises up out of
the prairie sudden-like. We was a travelling 'long mighty easy, for
we was all afoot, and had hoofed it the whole distance, more than six
hundred miles, driving five good mules ahead of us. Our furs was packed
on four of them, and the other carried our blankets, extry ammunition,
frying-pan, coffee-pot, and what little grub we had, for we was obliged
to depend upon buffalo, antelope, and jack-rabbits; but, boys, I tell
you there was millions of 'em in them days.

"We had just got into camp at Point o' Rocks. It was 'bout four o'clock
in the afternoon; none of us carried watches, we always reckoned time
by the sun, and could generally guess mighty close, too. It was powerful
hot, I remember. We'd hobbled our mules close to the ledge, where the
grass was good, so they couldn't be stampeded, as we know'd we was in
the Pawnee country, and they was the most ornery Ingins on the plains.
We know'd nothing that was white ever came by that part of the Trail
without having a scrimmage with the red devils.

"Well, we hadn't more than took our dinner, when them mules give a
terrible snort, and tried to break and run, getting awful oneasy all to
once. Them critters can tell when Ingins is around. They's better than a
dozen dogs. I don't know how they can tell, but they just naturally do.

"In less than five minutes after them mules began to worry, stopped
eating, and had the