so far exhausted that we
could not stand on our feet. One more day, and we would have been laid
out.

"The little children were, fortunately, saved from the horror of that
terrible march after the fight, as the Indians carried them to their
winter camp, where, if not absolutely happy, they were under shelter and
fed; escaping the starvation which would certainly have been their fate
if they had remained with us. They were eventually ransomed for a cash
payment by the government, and altogether had not been very harshly
treated."

CHAPTER XIX. BENT'S FORTS.

The famous Bent brothers, William, George, Robert, and Charles, were
French-Canadian hunters and trappers, and had been employed almost from
boyhood, in the early days of the border, by the American Fur Company in
the mountains of the Northwest.

In 1826, almost immediately after the transference of the fur trade to
the valley of the Arkansas, when the commerce of the prairies was fairly
initiated, the three Bents and Ceran St. Vrain, also a French-Canadian
and trapper, settled on the Upper Arkansas, where they erected a
stockade. It was, of course, a rude affair, formed of long stakes or
pickets driven into the ground, after the Mexican style known as jacal.
The sides were then ceiled and roofed, and it served its purpose of a
trading-post. This primitive fort was situated on the left or north
bank of the river, about halfway between Pueblo and Canyon City, those
beautiful mountain towns of to-day.

Two years afterward, in 1828, the proprietors of the primitive stockade
in the remote wilderness found it necessary to move closer to the
great hunting-grounds lower down the valley. There, about twelve miles
northeast of the now thriving town of Las Animas, the Bents commenced
the construction of a relatively large and more imposing-looking
structure than the first. The principal material used in the new
building, or rather in its walls, was adobe, or sun-dried brick, so
common even to-day in New Mexican architecture. Four years elapsed
before the new fort was completed, during which period its owners, like
other trappers, lived in tents or teepees fashioned of buffalo-skins,
after the manner of the Indians.

When at last the new station was completed, it was named Fort William,
in honour of Colonel William Bent, who was the leader of the family
and the most active trader among the four partners in the concern.
The colonel frequently made long trips t