oad bright and
early the next morning. We left the main trail and took a south east
course and crossed the extreme southern portion, of what is now the
state of Utah. We traveled hundreds of miles in this country without
seeing a human being.

A year ago I passed through this same country in a comfortable seat in
a railroad car, and it would be difficult for me to make the people of
this day understand the feelings that I experienced when in looking from
the car window I saw the changes that fifty-five years have made in what
was a wild, rough wilderness, inhabited by Buffaloes, Antelopes, Coyotes
and savage men.

We kept on through this section of country until we struck the Colorado
river, which we crossed just below the mouth of Green river, and a few
days' travel brought us into the northwest part of what is now New
Mexico.

The country which is now New Mexico was at the time of which I am
writing considered perfectly worthless. It is a rolling, hilly country
with smooth, level valleys between the hills and is proving to be very
fertile and is settling as fast as any part of the west.

There was nothing more to trouble us, and we made good progress on our
journey, and in ten days from the time we left the Colorado river we
reached Taos, New Mexico, which was the end of our journey, and tired
and worn with the long hours in the saddle and the anxiety of mind which
we had experienced in all the long months since we left there in the
spring, we were glad to get there and rest a few days and to feel that
we were free with no responsibility.

[Illustration: The mother bear ran to the dead cub and pawed it with her
foot.]

CHAPTER VII.

We found Uncle Kit and his family all well and glad to see us. It was
late in the afternoon when we got there, and we spent the remainder of
the day and evening in recounting our summer's experience for Uncle
Kit's benefit, who was a very interested listener to all that had
befallen us since we parted from him in the spring.

While we ate supper, Jim told Uncle Kit of the fight with the Indians
in which I killed the old chief and took his scalp and war bonnet, an
account which amused Uncle Kit very much, and later in the evening he
insisted on my undoing my pack and showing the bonnet to him.

After he had examined it, he said, "Will, I always knew that you would
make an Indian fighter since that night when you were not fifteen years
old and showed such bravery in showing m