as Fuentes, the other Pablo Hernandez.
They informed Fremont that they belonged to a party of Mexican traders
which had come from New Mexico. They said that six of them, including
in this number two women who acted as cooks, had been left by their
friends in charge of a band of horses. The rest of the party were
absent trafficking. The party of six thus left to watch the horses,
consisted of Santiago Giacome, Andreas Fuentes and wife, and Pablo
Hernandez, together with his father and mother. They were endeavoring
to find better grazing for their animals. For this purpose they had
penetrated the country as far as they dared; and, at about eighty
miles from the camp of Fremont, had resolved to wait for their
friends. Fuentes and the boy Pablo were on guard over the animals when
their camp was attacked by hostile savages. The attacking band was
about thirty in number.

Their principal object was to seize the horses. To effect this the
more easily, they saluted the little band with a flight of arrows as
they advanced. Fuentes and Pablo now heard Giacome warning them to
start the horses and run for it. Both were mounted. They obeyed the
directions of Giacome and with the entire band of horses charged
boldly into the midst of the Indians regardless of their weapons. The
charge succeeded in breaking their line, through which Fuentes and
Pablo boldly dashed after their animals. The Indians deferred the
chase to attend to a more bloody purpose. Having put sixty miles
between them and the site of the attack, they left their horses
and started in search of their main body. This search led them into
Fremont's camp. Fuentes feared that the worst had overtaken his wife.
Pablo already looked upon himself as an orphan boy. He doubted not
that the bloody savages had murdered both his father and mother. It
was a sad picture to witness their grief. But Kit Carson could not
do so unmoved. The heart of such grief has ever awakened his earnest
sympathy. His sympathy, too, has never been of a wordy nature. He
volunteered to go with Fuentes and make an attempt to deliver the
captives, if such they should prove, or to avenge their death, if that
became the sad alternative.

Fuentes had left the horses at a spring of water, well known to
Carson. There he had found signs of white men which had led him into
Fremont's camp. There was no difficulty for Carson to find the spring.
The whole company therefore traveled to the spring, which they reache