d drop his pipe, his knife, his flint and steel, or a
piece of tobacco, and have to scramble down to pick them up. In doing
this he would contrive to get in everybody's way; and as the most of the
party were by no means remarkable for a fastidious choice of language, a
storm of anathemas would be showered upon him, half in earnest and half
in jest, until Tete Rouge would declare that there was no comfort in
life, and that he never saw such fellows before.

Only a day or two after leaving Bent's Fort Henry Chatillon rode forward
to hunt, and took Ellis along with him. After they had been some time
absent we saw them coming down the hill, driving three dragoon-horses,
which had escaped from their owners on the march, or perhaps had given
out and been abandoned. One of them was in tolerable condition, but the
others were much emaciated and severely bitten by the wolves. Reduced as
they were we carried two of them to the settlements, and Henry exchanged
the third with the Arapahoes for an excellent mule.

On the day after, when we had stopped to rest at noon, a long train of
Santa Fe wagons came up and trailed slowly past us in their picturesque
procession. They belonged to a trader named Magoffin, whose brother,
with a number of other men, came over and sat down around us on the
grass. The news they brought was not of the most pleasing complexion.
According to their accounts, the trail below was in a very dangerous
state. They had repeatedly detected Indians prowling at night around
their camps; and the large party which had left Bent's Fort a few weeks
previous to our own departure had been attacked, and a man named Swan,
from Massachusetts, had been killed. His companions had buried the body;
but when Magoffin found his grave, which was near a place called the
Caches, the Indians had dug up and scalped him, and the wolves had
shockingly mangled his remains. As an offset to this intelligence, they
gave us the welcome information that the buffalo were numerous at a few
days' journey below.

On the next afternoon, as we moved along the bank of the river, we saw
the white tops of wagons on the horizon. It was some hours before we
met them, when they proved to be a train of clumsy ox-wagons, quite
different from the rakish vehicles of the Santa Fe traders, and loaded
with government stores for the troops. They all stopped, and the drivers
gathered around us in a crowd. I thought that the whole frontier might
have been ransa