We looked off to our right and saw a large herd of horses, driven
by seven Ute Indians, who were pushing them at the greatest
possible speed. We urged our horses in the direction of camp as
fast as possible. As soon as we were in sight of camp, we gave the
alarm and every man sprang to his gun, mounted his horse and was
ready to receive them. The Indians did not see us until they had
run the herd of horses almost into our camp. Our saddle horses
being fresh, we succeeded in killing the seven Indians before they
got far away, and captured the herd of horses, which proved to be
a herd they had stolen from the Arapahoe Indians the night
before, and in less than an hour, Gray Eagle, the Arapahoe chief,
came along in pursuit, accompanied by fifty of his select
warriors. When Uncle Kit showed him the dead Utes, he walked up to
one of them, gave him a kick and said: "Lo-mis-mo-cay-o-te," which
means, "All the same as cayote."
Gray Eagle gave us each a horse, thanked us very kindly and
returned to his village with his animals.
We proceeded on our journey to Santa Fe, which took us twelve
days. Here we met our old friend, Joe Favor, who we had sold our
furs to the year before, and who bought them again this season.
Furs being still higher this year, notwithstanding our small
catch, Uncle Kit did fairly well out of his winter's trapping.
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