ecame living
candlesticks, and, when all their candles were lighted, the illumination
was quite brilliant enough even for a wedding.

Everything being ready, the door through which the candles had been
brought again opened, and the bridal party entered. First came the
priest, then Kit Carson and his wife, who was a Mexican woman from Taos.
Behind them walked the couple who were to be married. The bride was a
slender, olive-complexioned girl, dressed very simply in white, while
the groom wore the handsome uniform of a lieutenant of cavalry. The rear
of the procession was brought up by a bevy of black-haired and
black-eyed senoritas, sisters and cousins of the bride.

The priest read the wedding service in Latin, and the bride made her
responses in Spanish, so that the few English words spoken by the groom
were all that most of the spectators understood. As "Billy" Brackett
afterwards remarked, it was evidently necessary to be liberally educated
to get married in that country.

At the conclusion of the ceremony the entire wedding-party, with the
exception of the bride's father, disappeared, and were seen no more;
while Colonel Carson led his guests into a neighboring room, where the
wedding supper was served. Here the famous scout, surrounded by the
tried comrades of many a wild campaign, entertained the company by
calling on these for one anecdote after another of the adventures that
had been crowded so thickly into their lives. This was a rare treat to
the new-comers, especially to Glen Eddy and Binney Gibbs, to whom the
thrilling tales, told by the boy trappers, scouts, hunters, and soldiers
who had participated in them, were so real and vivid that, before this
delightful evening was over, it seemed as though they too must have
taken part in the scenes described.

In spite of the late hours kept by most of the engineers that night,
their camp was broken by daylight, and at sunrise they were off on the
line as usual, for September was now well advanced, and there were
mountain ranges yet to be crossed that would be impassable after winter
had once fairly set in. So, leaving the pleasant army post and their
hospitable entertainers in it, they picked up their line, and, running
it out over the broad San Luis Valley to the Rio Grande, began to follow
that river into the very heart of New Mexico.

Glen was more than glad to find himself once more on Nettle's back, and
again bearing the front flag in advance of the part