CHAPTER VIII 



GAIN 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 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 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 



2S4 



