sale.

All these little settlements were clustered around some protecting fort. A
man, who was brought up in the remote West, furnishes the following
interesting incident in his own personal experience. It gives a very
graphic description of the alarms to which these pioneers were exposed:

"The fort to which my father belonged was three-quarters of a mile from
his farm. But when this fort went to decay and was unfit for use, a new
one was built near our own house. I well remember, when a little boy, the
family were sometimes waked up in the dead of night by an express, with
the report that the Indians were at hand. The express came softly to the
door and by a gentle tapping raised the family. This was easily done, as
an habitual fear made us ever watchful, and sensible to the slightest
alarm. The whole family were instantly in motion.

"My father seized his gun and other implements of war. My mother waked up
and dressed the children as well as she could. Being myself the oldest of
the children, I had to take my share of the burdens to be carried to the
fort. There was no possibility of getting a horse in the night to aid us.
Besides the little children we caught up such articles of clothing and
provisions as we could get hold of in the dark, for we durst not light a
candle or even stir the fire. All this was done with the utmost dispatch
and in the silence of death. The greatest care was taken not to awaken
the youngest child.

"To the rest it was enough to say _Indian_, and not a whisper was heard
afterward. Thus it often happened that the whole number belonging to a
fort, who were in the evening at their homes, were all in their little
fortress before the dawn of the next morning. In the course of the next
day their household furniture was brought in by men under arms. Some
families belonging to each fort were much less under the influence of fear
than others. These often, after an alarm had subsided, in spite of every
remonstrance, would remove home, while their more prudent neighbors
remained in the fort. Such families were denominated _fool-hardy_, and
gave no small amount of trouble by creating such frequent necessities of
sending runners to warn them of their danger, and sometimes parties of our
men to protect them during their removal."

While Kit Carson was impatiently at work on the bench of the
harness-maker, feeding his soul with the stories, often greatly
exaggerated, of the wonders of scenes and adven