ugh the water, several trappers on horseback entered it
from the other side. Their buckskin frocks were soaked through by the
rain, and clung fast to their limbs with a most clammy and uncomfortable
look. The water was trickling down their faces, and dropping from the
ends of their rifles, and from the traps which each carried at the
pommel of his saddle. Horses and all, they had a most disconsolate and
woebegone appearance, which we could not help laughing at, forgetting
how often we ourselves had been in a similar plight.

After half an hour's riding we saw the white wagons of the Mormons drawn
up among the trees. Axes were sounding, trees were falling, and log-huts
going up along the edge of the woods and upon the adjoining meadow.
As we came up the Mormons left their work and seated themselves on
the timber around us, when they began earnestly to discuss points
of theology, complain of the ill-usage they had received from the
"Gentiles," and sound a lamentation over the loss of their great temple
at Nauvoo. After remaining with them an hour we rode back to our camp,
happy that the settlements had been delivered from the presence of such
blind and desperate fanatics.

On the morning after this we left the Pueblo for Bent's Fort. The
conduct of Raymond had lately been less satisfactory than before, and
we had discharged him as soon as we arrived at the former place; so that
the party, ourselves included, was now reduced to four. There was some
uncertainty as to our future course. The trail between Bent's Fort and
the settlements, a distance computed at six hundred miles, was at this
time in a dangerous state; for since the passage of General Kearny's
army, great numbers of hostile Indians, chiefly Pawnees and Comanches,
had gathered about some parts of it. A little after this time they
became so numerous and audacious, that scarcely a single party, however
large, passed between the fort and the frontier without some token of
their hostility. The newspapers of the time sufficiently display this
state of things. Many men were killed, and great numbers of horses and
mules carried off. Not long since I met with the gentleman, who, during
the autumn, came from Santa Fe to Bent's Fort, when he found a party
of seventy men, who thought themselves too weak to go down to the
settlements alone, and were waiting there for a re-enforcement. Though
this excessive timidity fully proves the ignorance and credulity of
the men, it ma