It was dangerous to undertake the trip
over such a precipitous and rocky trail, so we were compelled to make
the best of our situation. It was awfully cold, and as we had brought no
blankets, we dared not go to sleep for fear our fire might go out,
and we should freeze. We therefore determined to make a night of it by
telling yarns, smoking our pipes, and walking around at times. After
sitting awhile, Maxwell pointed toward the Spanish Peaks, whose
snow-white tops cast a diffused light in the heavens above them, and
remarked that in the deep canyon which separates them, he had had one of
the "closest calls" of his life, willingly complying when I asked him to
tell us the story.

"It was in 1847. I came down from Taos with a party to go to the
Cimarron crossing of the Santa Fe Trail to pick up a large herd of
horses for the United States Quartermaster's Department. We succeeded in
gathering about a hundred and started back with them, letting them graze
slowly along, as we were in no hurry. When we arrived at the foot-hills
north of Bent's Fort, we came suddenly upon the trail of a large
war-band of Utes, none of whom we saw, but from subsequent developments
the savages must have discovered us days before we reached the
mountains. I knew we were not strong enough to cope with the whole Ute
nation, and concluded the best thing for us to do under the ticklish
circumstances was to make a detour, and put them off our trail. So we
turned abruptly down the Arkansas, intending to try and get to Taos
in that direction, more than one hundred and fifty miles around. It
appeared afterward that the Indians had been following us all the way.
When we found this out, some of the men believed they were another
party, and not the same whose trail we came upon when we turned down
the river, but I always insisted they were. When we arrived within a few
days' drive of Taos, we were ambushed in one of the narrow passes of the
range, and had the bloodiest fight with the Utes on record. There were
thirteen of us, all told, and two little children whom we were escorting
to their friends at Taos, having received them at the Cimarron crossing.

"While we were quietly taking our breakfast one morning, and getting
ready to pull out for the day's march, perfectly unsuspicious of the
proximity of any Indians, they dashed in upon us, and in less than a
minute stampeded all our stock--loose animals as well as those we were
riding. While part of the sa