GEORGE FREDERICK RUXTON XI 



captured, as well as several hundred prisoners ; and 

 that not one American was killed in the affair 1 This 

 is positive fact. 



" I myself, with three trappers, cleared a fandango at 

 Taos, armed only with bowie-knives some score Mexi- 

 cans, at least, being in the room. 



"With regard to the incidents of Indian attacks, 

 starvation, cannibalism, ike., I have invented not one 

 out of my own head They are all matters of history 

 in the mountains ; but I have, no doubt, jumbled the 

 dramatis personal one with another, and may have 

 committed anachronisms in the order of their occur- 

 rence." 



Again he wrote as follows : 



" I think it woiild be as well to correct a misappre- 

 hension as to the truth and fiction of the paper. It is 

 no fiction. There is no incident in it which has not actu- 

 ally occurred, nor one character who is not well known 

 in the Rocky Mountains, with the exception of two 

 whose names are changed the originals of these being, 

 however, equally well known with the others." 



His last letter, written just before his departure from 



England, a few weeks previously to his death, will 



hardly be read by any one who ever knew the writer, 



without a tear of sympathy for the sad fate of this 



b 



