CHAPTER VIII 



AGAIN we must take a jump with La Bonte 

 over a space of several months, when we 

 find him in company of half-a-dozen trap- 

 pers, amongst them his inseparable compafiero 

 Killbuck, camped on the Greenhorn Creek, en 

 route to the settlements of New Mexico. They 

 have a few mules packed with beaver for the Taos 

 market ; but this expedition has been planned more 

 for pleasure than profit a journey to Taos 

 valley being the only civilized relaxation coveted 

 by the mountaineers. Not a few of the present 

 band are bound thither with matrimonial in- 

 tentions ; the belles of Nuevo Mejico being to them 

 the ne plus ultra of female perfection, uniting most 

 conspicuous personal charms (although coated 



with cosmetic alegria an herb, with the juice of 



which the women of Mexico hideously bedaub their 

 faces) with all the hard-working industry of In- 

 dian squaws. The ladies, on their part, do not 

 hesitate to leave the paternal abodes, and eternal 

 tortilla-making, to share the perils and privations 

 of the American mountaineers in the distant wil- 

 derness. Utterly despising their own countrymen, 



whom they are used to contrast with the dashing 



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