CHAPTER VIII. 



AGAIN we must take a jump with La Bontd over a 

 space of several months ; when we find him, in com- 

 pany of half a dozen trappers, amongst them his 

 inseparable companero 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 civilised relaxation coveted 

 by the mountaineers. Not a few of the present band 

 are bound thither with matrimonial intentions; 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 Indian squaws. The ladies, on their part, 

 do not hesitate to leave the paternal abodes, and 

 eternal tortilla-making, to share the perils and priva- 

 tions of the American mountaineers in the distant 

 wilderness. Utterly despising their own countrymen, 

 whom they are used to contrast with the dashing 

 white hunters who swagger in all the pride of fringe 



