engineer officers of the army
at different times, the height of Bent's Fort above the ocean level is
approximately eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight feet, and
the fall of the Arkansas River from the fort to the great bend of that
stream, about three hundred and eleven miles east, is seven feet and
four-tenths per mile.

It was in a relatively fair state of preservation thirty-three years
ago, but now not a vestige of it remains, excepting perhaps a mound
of dirt, the disintegration of the mud bricks of which the historical
structure was built.

The Indians whose villages were located a few miles below the fort, or
at least the chief men of the various tribes, passed much of their time
within the shelter of the famous structure. They were bountifully fed,
and everything they needed furnished them. This was purely from policy,
however; for if their wishes were not gratified, their hunters would not
bring in their furs to trade. The principal chiefs never failed to
be present when a meal was announced as ready, and however scarce
provisions might be, the Indians must be fed.

The first farm in the fertile and now valuable lands of the valley of
the Rio de las Animas[60] was opened by the Bents. The area selected for
cultivation was in the beautiful bottom between the fort and the ford,
a strip about a mile in length, and from one hundred and fifty to six
hundred feet in width. Nothing could be grown without irrigation, and
to that end an acequia, as the Mexicans call the ditch through which the
water flows, was constructed, and a crop put in. Before the enterprising
projectors of the scheme could reap a harvest, the hostile savages
dashed in and destroyed everything.

Uncle John Smith was one of the principal traders back in the '30's,
and he was very successful, perhaps because he was undoubtedly the
most perfect master of the Cheyenne language at that time in the whole
mountain region.

Among those who frequently came to the fort were Kit Carson, L. B.
Maxwell, Uncle Dick Wooton, Baptiste Brown, Jim Bridger, Old Bill
Williams, James Beckwourth, Shawnee Spiebuck, Shawnee Jake--the latter
two, noted Indian trappers--besides a host of others.

The majority of the old trappers, to a stranger, until he knew their
peculiar characteristics, were seemingly of an unsociable disposition.
It was an erroneous idea, however; for they were the most genial
companions imaginable, generous to a fault, and to fall into on