severing the femoral artery. He breathed his last in a few minutes; the
driver was shot through the heart, and one or two of the escorts were
slightly wounded. News of this affair reached the post before sunset,
and in twenty minutes Company K was on its way down the west side of the
river to intercept, if possible, these murderers. The company was kept
in the field for thirty days, without other result than to find a hot
trail of eighty-two Navajoes, who were on their way to their own
country, with some eight thousand head of sheep and other stock that
they had stolen in the upper counties of New Mexico. As the company were
dismounted, it was impossible to take up the trail. The commander of the
company, however, with five cavalrymen and two Mexican scouts, followed
and overtook the Indians after a run of twenty-five miles, but
accomplished nothing except exchanging some twenty or twenty-five shots
on either side, as our animals were completely "blown," and eighty-two
to eight was an unpleasant disparity of numbers. The lieutenant and his
men arrived back at the river the next morning, having been in the
saddle nearly twenty-four hours. The result of the short skirmish was
that one of the cavalrymen's horses was shot through the breast, and one
Navajo was sent to his happy hunting-grounds and one was wounded.

January, 1864, Company K was ordered to Los Pinos, about one hundred
miles further up the Rio Grande, and about twenty miles south of
Albuquerque; marching through the towns of Socorro, La Limitar, across
the sand hills at the foot of the _Sierra de los Ladrones_, or Thieves
Mountains; crossing the Rio Puerco, near its affluence with the Rio
Grande; thence to Sabinal, La Belen, and Los Lunes. They remained here
until the first of February, when Colonel Kit Carson arrived there from
the Navajo country, with some two hundred and fifty-three Navajo
Indians, whom he had taken prisoners in his operations against that
nation. Orders were received from department headquarters for Company K
to proceed with these Indians to the Bosque Redondo, some two hundred
and fifty miles down on the Pecos river. Accordingly, after formally
receiving these prisoners and receipting therefor, the command moved
out, and on the second night arrived at Carnwell Canon; thence to San
Antonio, San Antoinette, Los Placeres and Gallisteo. Thus far the
command had moved across the country, but on the day of leaving
Gallisteo, the company struck t