LIFE INTHEFAR WEST. 193 



Taos, numbered in its ranks a properer lot of lads than those now 

 camped on Greenhorn, intent on matrimonial foray into the settle- 

 ments of New Mexico. There was yoimg Dick Wooton, who 

 was " some" for his inches, being six feet six, and as straight anc- 

 strong as the barrel of his long rifle. Shoulder to shoulder with 

 this "boy," stood Rube Herring, and not a hair's-breadth difier- 

 ence in height or size was there between them. Killbuck, though 

 mountain winters had sprinkled a few snow-flakes on his head, 

 looked up to neither ; and La Bonte held his own with any 

 mountaineer who ever set a trap in sight of Long's Peak or the 

 Snowy Range. MarceUin — who, though a Mexican, despised his 

 people and abjured his blood, having been all his life in the 

 mountains with the white hunters — looked down easily upon six 

 feet and odd inches. In form a Hercules, he had the symmetry 

 of an Apollo ; with strikingly handsome features, and masses of 

 long black hair hanging from his slouching beaver over the 

 shoulders of his buckskin hunting shirt. He, as he was wont t^ 

 say, was "no dam Spaniard, but ' mountainee man,' wagh !" 

 Chabonard, a half-breed, was not lost in the crowd ; — and, the 

 last in height, but the first in eveiy quality which constitutes 

 excellence in a mountaineer, whether of indomitable courage, or 

 perfect indiflence to death or danger ; with an iron frame capable 

 of withstanding hunger, thirst, heat, cold, fatigue, and hardships of* 

 every kind ; of wonderful presence of mind, and endless resources 

 in times of peril ; with the instinct of an animal, and the^ moral 

 courage of a man — who was " taller" for his inches than Kji 

 Carson, paragon of mountaineers?^ Small in stature, and 



* Since the time of which we speak, Kit Carson has distinguished himself ri 

 guiding the sevei-al U. S. exploring expeditions, under Fremont, across the Rocky 

 Mountains, and to all parts of Oregon and California; and for his services, the 

 President of the United States presented the gallant mountaineer with the com- 

 mission of lieutenant in a newly raised regiment of mounted riflemen, of which 

 his old leader Fremont is appointed colonel. 



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