ing hard we found Scout
sole prints in the horse and burro trail.

By this time it was growing dusk, and Jed Smith was sick because he had
drunk too much water out of the creek, when he was tired and hot and
hungry. So we decided to stay here for the night. From the signs we
figured out what might have happened:

According to the tracks, the burro thieves had joined with this camp.
Our fellows had sighted the burro thieves, back where the "Look out"
sign had been made, and had circuited the draw so as to keep out of
sight themselves, and had taken the trail again on the ridge. They had
followed along that cow-path, and had been ambushed. The cut ropes
showed that they had been tied. This camp had been here for two or three
days, because of the path worn to the creek and because of the coffee
grounds and the fish bones and the other sign. It was a dirty camp, too,
and with its unsanitary arrangements and cigarette butts and tobacco
juice was such a camp as would be made by that town gang. The sign of
the cut ropes looked like the town gang, too. The camp must have broken
up in a hurry, and moved out quick, by the things that were forgotten.
Campers don't forget bacon, very often. The cut ropes would show haste,
and we might have thought that the Scout prisoners had escaped, if we
hadn't found their sole prints with the out-going trail. These prints
had been stepped on by burros, showing that the burros followed behind.
What the beaver man was doing here we could not tell.

So we guessed pretty near, I think.

Little Jed Smith had a splitting headache, from heat and work and
water-drinking. His tongue looked all right, so I decided it was just
tiredness and stomach. One of the blankets was dry; we wrapped him up
and let him lie quiet, with a wet handkerchief on his eyes, and I gave
him a dose of aconite, for fever. (Note 51.)

At this time, we know now, General Ashley and Thomas Fitzpatrick were
being hustled along one trail, captives to the gang; the beaver man was
on a second trail, with our message; and Jim Bridger was on his lone
scout in another direction, and just about to make a camp-fire with his
hob-nails and a flint.

The dusk was deepening, and Kit Carson and I went ahead settling camp
for the night. We built a fire, and spread the blankets, and were making
tea in a tin can when we heard hoof thuds on the cow-path. A man rode in
on us. He was a young man, with a short red mustache and a peaked hat,
and a