and
from his "possible" sack he took various leaves and stems and roots he
had collected on the way. Four white men looking more like Indians had
entered that little valley just before dusk. In the morning at dawn two
white men, a Blackfoot and a Delaware, a hunting party from Bent's Fort
with messages for Bent's little Vermajo ranch, located in a mountain
valley, left the ravine and followed a little-used Ute trail that their
leader knew well. Hank wore the Blackfoot distinctive double part in his
hair just above the forehead, the isolated tuft pulled down to the
bridge of his nose, and fastened to his buckskin trousers were thin
strips of beadwork made by Blackfoot squaws.

The Mexican herder working for Bent uneasily watched them as they rode
up to his makeshift lean-to and demanded a change of horses, a report of
his stewardship, and the use of his fire. They were not bad fellows and
were generous with their heavenly tobacco, and finally his uneasiness
wore away and he gossiped with them while the night more and more shut
in his lavish fire and seemed to soften the guttural polyglot of the two
Indians. The white men did most of the talking, as was usual, and could
make themselves understood in the herder's bastard Spanish and they
answered sociably his numerous questions. Had they heard of the great
_Tejano_ army marching to avenge the terrible defeat inflicted by the
brave Armijo on their swaggering vanguard? It was the great subject from
the upper end of the Valley of Taos to the last settlement along the Rio
Grande and the Pecos. The ignoble dogs of _Tejanos_ had basely murdered
the brave Mexican scouting party near the Cimarron Crossing of the
Arkansas. What could the _soldats_ of Mexico do, attacked in their
sleep? Most of the murdered _soldats_ had come from the Valley of Taos,
which always had been friendly to Texas. Was it true that the _Tejanos_
spit fire on dry nights and could kill a full-grown bull buffalo with
their bare hands? Ah, they were devils and the sons of devils, those
_Tejanos_; and at night all doors were tightly barred in the settlements
and strange Americans regarded with suspicion.

Some nights later, down the rough, steep sides of the Arroyo Hondo,
through which trickled a ribbon of water from a recent rain, four
Indians rode carefully, leading two pack animals. They were two
Arapahoes, a Blackfoot, and a Delaware, and they followed the ravine and
soon came in sight of the little mountai