ELDORADO 251 



order to be protected by them. Ewing Young — one 

 of the bravest and most generous men of whom the 

 annals of the West give any record, and who, as a 

 trapper, hunter and Indian fighter, had few equals and 

 no superiors — heard of the predicament of his brother 

 trappers. He had also learned that the mountain can- 

 yon to which they were journeying and which it 

 would be impossible to avoid, if they desired to reach 

 the mountain streams, had been occupied by two thou- 

 sand warriors, who lay in ambush, waiting to entrap 

 and annihilate the whites. With forty trappers he 

 endeavored to cut his way through the hundreds of 

 savages, who surrounded the marching and battling 

 train of Waldo and the Bents. 



The odds were too great even for valor such as 

 theirs, and they had much difficulty in cutting their 

 own way out from the swarms of enveloping Indians. 

 It was here that the young hero, Kit Carson, a new 

 recruit of Young's, first proved the temper of his 

 mettle, and showed himself worthy to combat along- 

 side of these veterans of a hundred battles. Young, 

 after hammering loose the swarms of savages, re- 

 treated to Taos, where he found other trappers as- 

 sembled for their yearly rendezvous. With his num- 

 bers increased to ninety-five, he again returned to 

 the attack, and after a desperate engagement, suc- 

 ceeded in reaching the Bents. The Indians, dispirited 

 at their want of success, and at the reinforcements of 

 their enemies, soon abandoned the light and retired, 

 having lost a large number in killed and wounded. 



In the winter of 1830-31, Bill Bent, Robert Isaacs 

 and a comrade whose name is unknown, made their 

 way into Arizona on a trapping expedition. For a 



