Our winter quarters being thus completed, Uncle Kit and Mr. Hughes set out one morning for the cache, intending to return that same evening. Before starting they told me to go out some time during the day and kill a small deer, that I would be able to carry to camp, and have a good lot of it cooked for supper, as they would be very hungry when they returned that night. They started sometime before daylight, and I stayed around the cabin, clearing things up and cutting wood, until about ten o'clock, then cleaned up my rifle and started out to kill the deer. It was an easy matter to find one, for they were as thick in that country as sheep on a mutton farm. But, boy-like, I wandered off up the canyon about two miles before I found a deer that just suited me, and I wanted to see the country, anyway.
At last I found a little deer that I thought about the right thing and I killed and dressed it—or rather undressed it—threw it on my shoulder and pulled for camp.
Instead of going the way I had come, I climbed out on the ridge to avoid the down timber, that was so thick in the creek bottom. When I was near the top of the ridge, I looked off a short distance and saw three Indians, on foot, going down the ridge in the direction of our dug-out.
I had often heard Uncle Kit tell how the Indians robbed the camps of trappers and that they invariably burned the cabins.
As soon as I got sight of the Indians, I dropped back over the ridge, for, luckily, they had not got sight of me. In a few seconds I did some powerful thinking, and I came to the conclusion that it would never do to let them find our dug-out, for while it would hardly burn, they might carry off our bedding, or destroy it. So I crawled up to a log, took good aim at the leader and fired, striking him just under the arm, bringing him down. The other two dropped to their knees, and looked all around, and I suppose the only thing that saved me was the wind was coming from them to me and blew the smoke from my gun down the canyon, so that they did not see where the shot came from.
I heard Uncle Kit tell of lying on his back and loading his rifle, when in a close place, so I did likewise and crawled up to my log again. The remaining two Indians, having looked all around and seeing no one, had got on their feet again, and were standing with bow and arrow in hand, each having a quiver full of arrows on his back, and if they had got sight of me that would have been the last of Young Kit. But I took aim at one of them and fired, with the same result as before. As my second Indian fell, the third one started back up the ridge, in the direction from which they had come, and if I ever saw an Indian do tall sprinting, that one did. I watched him until he was out of sight, and then loaded my gun, shouldered my deer and went to where the two Indians were lying. They were both as dead as dried herring.
I had never seen an Indian scalped, but had often heard how it was done, so I pulled my hunting-knife and took their top-nots, and again started for the dug-out, a great hunter and Indian fighter, in my own estimation.
I hung the scalps up inside the dug-out, directly in front of the door, so that Uncle Kit and Mr. Hughes would see them the first thing on entering the cabin. Then I set about getting supper, all the while thinking what a mighty deed I had done in saving our cabin, which was probably true.
The two men did not return until after dark and they were very tired and hungry, having walked forty miles that day, carrying on the return trip a hundred pounds each. That is a heavy load for a man to carry twenty miles, but they did it, and it was no uncommon thing for the hardy frontiersmen of that day to perform like feats of strength and endurance.
When they pushed open the heavy log door, the scalps were almost in their faces.
"Who did this?" said Uncle Kit, as he threw his heavy pack on the dirt floor.
I told him and he was very much astonished.
"How was it, Willie?" he asked, and I told him the whole story.
While I was telling him the story, as briefly as I could, he showed more agitation than I had ever seen him exhibit.
During all the time I had been with him, he had never spoken a harsh word to me, up to this time. But while we were at supper he said to me:
"My boy, don't let me ever hear of you taking such chances again. Not that I care for you killin' the Injuns, but you took great chances for losing your own hair, for had them redskins got sight of you, by the time they had got through with you, your hide wouldn't have held corn shucks. And it's a mystery to me that they didn't see you."
The following morning after breakfast we all took a trip up the canyon, where I had gone the morning before, and we took with us twelve beaver traps that they had brought up from the cache, and these we set at different places along the stream.
After they were set Uncle Kit asked me if I thought I could find all of them again, and I said I thought I could.
"All right then," he said. "It will be your job to tend these traps, until Jim and me get the balance of the stuff packed up from the cache. Now le's go and see your Injuns."
I took them to where I had shot the two Indians, and Uncle Kit, as soon as he saw them, said:
"They are Utes, and the wust hoss-thieves on the waters of the Colorado. Willie, I'm dog-goned glad you killed 'em. I would a give the best hoss I've got to a been here with you, for I think Old Black Leg would a caught the other feller, afore he got to the top o' the mountain."
"Black Leg" was Uncle Kit's pet name for his rifle.
That night, before going to bed, Uncle Kit said we must be up early next morning, as he and Hughes would have to make another trip to the cache, and that I must tend to the traps and keep a sharp lookout for Indians "But whatever happens," he said, "don't ever be taken prisoner."
They started very early the next morning, and as soon as it was light I struck out to examine the traps. From the twelve I took nine beaver, skinned them, reset the traps, returned to the dug- out and stretched the skins.
The stretching is done by making a bow of a small willow or other pliant wood, for each hide, and then pulling the hide over it. The hides are thus left until they are dry, when the bows are taken out and the hides are packed in a frame made for that purpose, fifty in a bale.
All of this kind of work I had learned at Bent's Fort, while there, from the many trappers there. Besides, Uncle Kit had given me other lessons in the work.
Uncle Kit and Mr. Hughes made a trip to the cache every other day until the stuff was all packed up to our winter quarters.
I had my hands full attending to the traps, as the men brought more of them on the second trip, and they set enough of them to make double work for me. One dozen traps is called a "string," and it is considered one man's work, ordinarily, to "tend a string."
The two men brought all the stuff up from the cache in five trips. On the day the last trip was made, I went out early, as usual, to attend to the traps, of which we had thirty-six. That morning I took twenty-three beaver, and seeing that it would be impossible for me to skin them all, I set about to carry them to the dug-out. If ever a boy worked, I did that day, and had just got through carrying them in when Uncle Kit and Mr. Hughes returned.
After we had got caught up with our work and rested a few days, Uncle Kit said one morning that we must be out early next day and get our work done so that we could go and kill some elk. "For," said he, "we have got to have meat for the winter and we must have some hides for beds."
In those days the trappers made their beds by first constructing a frame or rough bedstand, over which they stretched a green elk hide, securing that by thongs or strings cut from a green deer skin. By lying on these at once, before they are dry, they get shaped to the body and they make a first-class bed for comfort.
We were out early to the traps next morning, and the catch being somewhat smaller than usual, we got through by 11 o'clock, and after eating a "snack"—a lunch—we started on the elk hunt.
After going about four miles we jumped up a band