LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 155 



of the sounds. The body of the cavallada, however, had luckily 

 turned, and, being headed by the mountaineers, were surrounded 

 and secured, with the loss of only three, which had probably been 

 mounted by the Indians. 



Day breaking soon after, one of their band was discovered to be 

 missing ; and it was then found that a man who had been stand- 

 ing 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 — I" exclaimed the trappers in a breath ; and soon impre- 

 cations and threats of revenge, loud and deep, were showered upon 

 the heads of the treacherous Indians. Some 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 fly- 

 ing along the track of the Indians, who had made off toward the 

 mountains with their prize and booty. We will not follow them 

 in their work of bloody vengeance, save by saying that they fol* 

 lowed the savages to their village, into which they charged head- 

 long, recovered their stolen horses, and returned to camp at sun- 

 down with thirteen scalps dangling from their rifles, in payment 

 for the loss of their unfortunate companion.* 



In their further advance, hunger and thirst were their daily 



* In rremont's expedition to California, on a somewhat similar occasion, two 

 mountaineers, one the celebrated Kit Carson, the other a St. Louis Frenchman 

 named Grodey, and both old trappers, performed a feat surpassing the one de- 

 scribed above, inasmuch as they were but two. They charged into an Indian 

 village to rescue some stolen horses, and avenge the slaughter of two New Mex- 

 icans who had been butchered by the Indians ; both which objects they effected, 

 returning to camp with the lost animals and a couple of propitiatory scalps. 



