I found Mr. Reed at his residence and paid the two hundred and fifty dollars to him.  He was much astonished at Uncle Kit sending two boys eleven hundred miles to pay so small a debt, and said that he had not expected to get the money until such time as Carson might be coming that way on other business, for it was so far that he would not have gone after it and taken the chances of crossing the country between the City of Mexico and Taos, as we had done, for the two hundred and fifty dollars.

But Uncle Kit owed this money and had agreed to pay it at a certain time, and he, like many other frontiersman, valued his word more than he did his gold.

We laid over two days at the City of Mexico in order to let our horses rest.  The day before we were to start, Mr. Reed, who had invited us to his residence to board while in the City, went out to where our horses were, and seeing that one of the horses had a sore back, told me that he would make me a present of a horse that, if I took good care of, would be able to carry me the entire trip.

I named this horse Mexico, and as will be seen later, he proved to be a noble saddle-horse, which I kept and rode for seven years.

We made the trip home somewhat quicker than we did on our way out, being better acquainted with the country, and so could make better time.

We were just two months making the round trip, arriving at Taos two weeks sooner than Uncle Kit had expected us.  Johnnie West and Mr. Hughes were glad to see us return, for it was more than they expected.

By the time my panther had grown to be quite large, and was glad to see me.

On my return to Taos I learned that Uncle Kit and Jim Bridger had formed a co-partnership, for the purpose of trapping the coming winter in the Wind River mountains, which were about seven hundred miles from Taos, and had employed Johnnie West, Charlie Jones and Jake Harrington to trap for them, and in a few days after my return from the City of Mexico we made the start with thirty-two pack-animals, besides our saddle-horses.

Nothing happening worthy of note on our way out, we arrived at our proposed trapping ground, and found plenty of beaver and plenty of fresh Indian sign as well, but the Indians were not apt to give us any trouble at this season of the year, more than to run our horses off, as they would prefer to let trappers alone until spring and then kill them and take their furs.

We established our two camps about four miles apart, and kept our horses in the valley between the two camps; there was an abundance of grass, plenty of game and no end to the beaver.  In fact, to take it on the whole, it seemed that this was going to be the loveliest place to spend the winter that we had ever struck, and the boys were all highly elated over their new winter quarters.  We had only been in our trapping field about two weeks when Uncle Kit went out one morning to kill a deer and to look after the horses.  He had not gone far when he looked across the little valley and saw an Indian driving off our horses.  Being in gunshot of the Indian, he fired at him and brought him to the ground.  When Uncle Kit returned to camp, he said: