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The frightened Mexicans left hurriedly for El Valle de Taos, whence they had come, crossing themselves and uttering thanks to Heaven for having retained their scalps.
"A company of dragoons was immediately sent to our rescue, under the guidance of Dick Wooton, who was and has ever been a warm personal friend of mine. They came upon us about forty miles from Taos, and never were we more surprised; we had become so starved and emaciated that we had abandoned all hope of escaping what seemed to be our inevitable fate.
In Tusayan the kivas are rectangular and separated from the houses; in Zuñi and in some other pueblos they are also rectangular, but are incorporated in the house clusters a feature doubtless brought about by the repressive policy of the Spanish monks. In some of the pueblos, as in Taos, they are circular, and in many of the older ruins the same form is found.
"Indians?" I asked. "No Spanish women were not supposed to see, or be seen by, the outside world." The pueblo proper lies about four miles out from the white man's town. Laguna, Acoma, Zuñi, the Three Mesas of the Tusayan Desert all lie on hillsides, or on the very crest of high acclivities. Taos is the exception among purely Indian pueblos.
The trappers, flush with money, returned to Taos. The vagabonds of the party soon squandered their earnings in rioting, and were then eager to set out on another excursion. It was now April, 1830. Young Carson was at this time a very handsome young man of twenty-one years. He had obtained a high reputation, and his pockets were full of money, with which he scarcely knew what to do.
He reduced the number of his escort to ten trusty followers. With them, he returned to Taos, and after a halt there of two days, once more was on the march.
Favor called me into the store and presented me with a single-shot, silver-mounted pistol, also a knife that weighed two and one-fourth pounds, that had been manufactured in St. Louis. We stopped at Santa Fe and rested two days, after which time Uncle Kit, Johnnie West, myself and my pet panther returned home to Taos, which was a distance of ninety miles from Santa Fe.
On my arrival at Taos I bought ten Mexican jacks or burros to use for pack animals on the trip that we were about to start upon. After that we started for Bent's Fort where we joined Buffalo Bill and Col. Bent and struck out for the "Picket Wire" Purgatoire on a buffalo hunt.
About a hundred and fifty miles north of Santa Fe there was a small collection of huts called Taos, inhabited by trappers and hunters. This pursuit of game for food and fur was the employment which was congenial to him above all others. He directed his steps to Taos and at once entered into an engagement with Mr. Ewing Young, making his cabin headquarters.
"'After the shootin' Spanish Bill crawls over to a ranch, an', gettin' a pony an' saddle, which he easy does, he breaks back into the hills where I encounters him. It's that morning his pony gets tired of the deal, an' bucks him off, an' goes stampedin' back. That's why he's afoot. "'While he's talkin' all this, I recalls how Spanish Bill rounds me up that night in Taos, so I don't hesitate.
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