to our camp, dismounted and set themselves in a half-circle 
in the middle of our camp and proceeded to scrutinize every 
object in the outfit, and to beg this and pretend to swap for 
that. One old scamp had the audacity to nudge me with his 
elbow and order me to bring a pail of agua (water) which I did 
not do. We treated them as coolly as possible, kept our rifles 
within reach, and held such manner of powwow as we could. Trad¬ 
ed some matches for some arrows and gave them some bread to eat. 
It appears that they were really trying to find their fine 
lariats, which we had hidden, and possibly to claim them. We 
watches them so closely that they failed to steal anything and 
saw them depart at last with feelings of relief. These fellows 
came more nearly up to my notion of what a bad Indian should 
look like than any that I had ever seen. 
We mounted double guard for the night, determined to 
protect ourselves to the utmost. I think I recognized two of 
the Indians as the same we met on the 25th of July between the 
Mancos camp and La Plata mines. That party of four has doubt- 
less been following us since that time. They are cowardly 
scamps who would not dare to steal our stock when they could 
be found out, or harm us personally if it were likely to endanger 
themselves. They know that we sleep and eat and work by our 
needle guns and move with great caution in consequence. 
