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Of course Kit Carson's duties were to supply the traders and their men with all the animal food they wanted, an easy task when game was plenty; but, it would often happen that bands of Indians, which were always loitering about the trading post, would precede him in the chase, thereby rendering his labors oftentimes very difficult.
Though its general level is so high, around 5500 feet, it receives hardly any snow, and for this reason was long a favourite place for wintering cattle on the drive from Texas to California. It was a great rendezvous, also, for the early trappers and traders, and here stood Fort Davy Crockett, in those days famous.
But when the consulate appeared to be concerned, when the war-ships of the German Empire were thought to fetch and carry for the firm, the rage of the independent traders broke beyond restraint. And, largely from the national touchiness and the intemperate speech of German clerks, this scramble among dollar-hunters assumed the appearance of an inter-racial war.
There only remained at the "tchitoka," the traders, the overseers and the soldiers ready to take their part of the punch, if the king and his court allowed them. Jose-Antonio Alvez, advised by Negoro, did the thing well. They brought a vast copper basin, capable of containing at least two hundred pints, which was placed in the middle of the great place.
But from the Romans along the coast everything is brought in to them by ship, and even so they do not pay gold to the traders, but hides and slaves and whatever else happens to be found there in great abundance; and when they were excluded from this trade, they were, as was to be expected, in a state of constant vexation.
Four traders from the south, with an Esquimaux family in company, spent that winter in their neighbourhood.
Cotton with a fine long staple grows wild in quantities wherever there is open ground, but it is not cultivated by the natives; and when attempts have been made to get them to collect it they do so, but bring it in very dirty, and the traders having no machinery to compress it like that used in America, it does not pay to ship.
He therefore gave out that he expected a party of "spirits," that is to say, Frenchmen, to meet him at the mouth of the Wisconsin, bringing a supply of goods for the Indians; and he declares that La Salle had in fact promised to send traders to that place. Be this as it may, the Indians believed him; and, true or false, the assertion, as will be seen, answered the purpose for which it was made.
These articles, which the islanders had got a taste of from American traders, were too strong a temptation for the fellow, and he consented. They paddled off in the track of the ship, and lay-to until she came down to them. George stepped on board the ship, nearly naked, painted from head to foot, and in no way distinguishable from his companion until he began to speak.
"Half these fellows are in alliance with these bands, which are a scourge to the country," one of the traders said. "If we were to inform the authorities at the next town, we should, in the first place, be blamed for letting the wounded man escape, and secondly we might be detained for days while investigations are going on.
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