184 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



Day breaking soon after, one of their band was dis- 

 covered to be missing ; and it was then found that a 

 man who had been standing horse-guard at the time of 

 the attack, had not come into camp with his companions. 

 At that moment a thin spiral column of smoke was seen 

 to rise from the banks of the creek, telling but too surely 

 the fate of the missing mountaineer. It was the signal 

 of the Indians to their people that a " coup " had been 

 struck, and that an enemy's scalp remained in their 

 triumphant hands. 



" H ! " exclaimed the trappers in a breath ; and 



soon imprecations and threats of revenge, loud and deep, 

 were showered upon the heads of the treacherous Indians. 

 Sotme of the party rushed to the spot where the guard 

 had stood, and there lay the body of their comrade, 

 pierced with lance and arrow, the scalp gone, and the 

 body otherwise mutilated in a barbarous manner. Five 

 were quickly in the saddle, mounted upon the strongest 

 horses, and flying along the track of the Indians, who 

 had made off towards the mountains with their prize 

 and booty. We will not follow them in their work of 

 bloody vengeance, save by saying that they followed the 

 savages to their village, into which they charged head- 

 long, recovered their stolen horses, and returned to camp 

 at sundown with thirteen scalps dangling from their 

 rifles, in payment for the loss of their unfortunate 

 companion.* 



* In Fremont's expedition to California, on a somewhat simi- 

 lar occasion, two mountaineers, one the celebrated Kit Carson, 

 the other a St Louis Frenchman named Godey, and both old 



