The next morning there was not a Ute to be seen, all having left
during the night.
The day following, the Comanches broke camp and started back for
their main village on the Arkansas river. We broke camp and
started out ahead of them, and in four days reached Bent's Fort,
where Uncle Kit sold his furs to Colonel Bent and Mr. Roubidoux.
These two kept a boarding-house at the Fort, and this being the
general loafing place during the summer season for most of the
trappers in this part of the country, they also kept whiskey, and
after the trappers had sold their furs, many of them would stop
around the Fort and pay board for about three or four months
during each summer, and by the time they were ready to start
trapping again, Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux would have all of
their money back for grub and whiskey, and, in fact, many of them
would be in debt to them.
There being so much stock around the Fort the game was driven back
so far that it became necessary to go considerable distance to get
any. Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux proposed to hire Johnnie West and
I to hunt for them for two months, saying that they had not had
fresh meat half of the time the past spring. We agreed to work for
them for two months, they being willing to pay us fifty dollars
each per month, with the understanding that in case we kept them
in meat all summer they would pay us extra wages.
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