Captured by the Navajos | Page 4

the southwest. "Look like deer or grazing cattle."
"There is a small herd of deer there, sure enough," I replied, after
making out the objects through my glass. "We shall not want for
venison if we have good luck with our rifles."
"Deer, antelope, turkeys, ducks, geese, sand-hill crane, and trout!"
exclaimed Frank. "We've hit a hunter's paradise."
"And bears and catamounts, too, I suspect," said Henry, looking a little
lugubrious.
"My, but wouldn't I like to kill a bear!" said Frank.
"Well, I don't believe I shall hunt for one, and I hope a bear won't hunt
for me," said the younger lad. "I'll be satisfied with turkeys, grouse,
ducks, and trout."
Six miles due west, a little south of the wooded point, detached from it
about half a mile, we perceived a line of small cabins, which we
inferred was the volunteer encampment. They stretched across a little
level space, enclosed by a gently sloping ridge of horseshoe shape. The
ridge, in fact, proved to be of that shape when we examined it later. The
row of sixteen cabins stretched across the curve, and looked out of the
opening towards the eastern side of the valley. Fifty yards in front of
the cabins, running across the horseshoe from heel to heel, flowed a
crystal stream of water twenty feet wide and two feet deep, which rose
from forty-two springs near the northern end of the valley. The ridge
enclosing the encampment was nowhere more than twenty-five feet
above the level parade.
The cabins were built of pine logs laid up horizontally, flanked on the

north by the kitchen and stable, and on the south by a storehouse.
Behind the cabins, at the centre of the horseshoe curve, two-thirds the
way up the slope of the ridge, and overlooking the encampment from
its rear, stood the guard-house, in front of which paced a sentinel.
Resuming our march, a brisk step soon brought us to the encampment.
At the brook before the parade I was met by the volunteer officers, who
did not disguise their joy at the prospect of leaving what they
considered a life of unbearable exile. Even before the customary
civilities were passed, the captain asked me if my animals were in a
condition to warrant his loading the wagons with his company property
as soon as I unloaded mine, as he wished to make an evening's march
towards Santa Fé.
I told him I thought they were, provided he took the two wagons
belonging to the camp in addition, so that the loads would be light. He
approved of my suggestion, and promised to send back the wagons as
soon as he reached Fort Marcy.
The wood-yard being well supplied with fuel, I saw no reason why the
wagons and mules could not be spared the ten days necessary to make
the round trip.
One reason for doing all I could to facilitate the immediate departure of
the Californians was that my men were anxious to move into the cabins
at once.
With my first glance at the encampment, it had seemed to me too open
to surprise. The adjacent forest-clad point crept up near the left flank,
offering an effectual screen to an attacking party, and the overlooking
sentinel at the guard-house did not have a range of vision to the rear of
more than fifty yards. He was not on the summit of the ridge by at least
half that distance, and walked along the side of the guard-house next
the cabins. He could see nothing of the surface of the valley to the west
of the ridge, and when passing along the front of the building, as he
paced backward and forward, he saw nothing to the rear of his beat.
I expressed my opinion of the situation to the volunteer captain, but he

replied, "Pshaw! you might as well take the sentinel off, for all the
good he does as a lookout for Indians."
"Have you seen none?"
"Not a solitary moccasin, except an occasional Pueblo, since I've been
here--eleven months."
"I suppose you have scouted the country thoroughly?"
"There isn't a trail within thirty miles that I do not know. These bundles
of wolf-skins and other pelts you see going into the wagons are pretty
good evidence that my men know the country."
We walked to the kitchen, and found, hanging on the walls of the
store-room, a dozen quarters of venison, the fat carcass of a bear, and
several bunches of fowl.
"We are not obliged to kill our cattle to supply the men with meat,"
added the captain. "We butcher only when we need a change from wild
meat."
"I saw from the edge of the valley where I entered it that you have
deer."
"Pretty much everything but buffalo is