We told him we might be gone one
moon, perhaps not so long. He wanted to know what Indian country
we would pass through. I told him none but the Comanches, for they
were terribly afraid of Navajoes. We assured him that we would not
pass through their country.
On the day appointed for the sale of our goods, the robes came in
by the hundreds. I never saw anything equal it.
We conducted our sale something like an auction. I would hold up a
string of beads and show them to the crowd; an Indian would step
forward and offer a robe for two strings of beads. Another would
offer a robe for one string. This was our idea for appointing a
certain day for trading with them, for the more Indians present
the better prices we were able to get for our goods.
We went there this time with about the amount of goods we had
always taken before to trade for a train load of robes, and we
sold our entire stock the first day. We could have traded ten
times that amount. Moreover, we got about one-half more than we
could pack at one trip.
We knew before we started in to sell that there was a greater
number of robes in the village than at any time we had visited it
before, as we had been pretty well over the village, and I had
never seen the like of robes and dry buffalo meat before, nor have
I since. Every wick-i-up was hanging full. The Indians said it had
been the best season for buffalo they had seen for years.
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