Carson's home. He remained at Taos, which is in New Mexico, until early
in the fall, about the first of October, which is early autumn in New
Mexico; then we started for our trapping ground, which was on the head
of the Arkansas river, where Beaver was as numerous as rats are around a
wharf.

We were very successful that winter in trapping. It was all new to me, I
had never seen a Beaver, or a Beaver trap. Deer, Elk, and Bison, which
is a species of Buffalo, was as plentiful in that country at that time
as cattle is now on the ranch. I really believe that I have seen more
deer in one day than there is in the whole State of Colorado at the
present time.

In the autumn, just before the snow commences to fall, the deer leave
the high mountains, and seek the valleys, and also the Elk and Bison; no
game stays in the high mountains but the Mountain Sheep, and he is very
peculiar in his habits. He invariably follows the bluffs of streams.
In winter and summer, his food is mostly moss, which he picks from the
rocks; he eats but very little grass. But there is no better meat than
the mountain sheep. In the fall, the spring lambs will weigh from
seventy-five to a hundred pounds, and are very fat and as tender as
a chicken; but this species of game is almost extinct in the United
States; I have not killed one in ten years.

We stayed in our camp at the head of the Arkansas river until sometime
in April, then we pulled out for Bent's Fort to dispose of our pelts. We
staid at the Fort three days. The day we left the Fort, we met a runner
from Col. Freemont with a letter for Carson. Freemont wanted Carson to
bring a certain amount of supplies to his camp and then to act as a
guide across the mountains to Monterey, California. The particulars of