At times it was necessary to march long distances without meeting water.
One of these dreary stretches was eighty miles long. It was necessary to
pass over it as rapidly as possible, day and night almost without resting.
In accomplishing one of these arduous journeys across a desert almost as
bare as that of Sahara, the party set out one afternoon at three o'clock.
One of the travellers writes:

"I shall never forget the impression which that night's journey left upon
my mind. Sometimes the trail led us over large basins of deep sand, where
the trampling of the mules' feet gave forth no sound. This, added to the
almost terrible silence which ever reigns in the solitude of the desert,
rendered our transit more like the passage of some airy spectacle where
the actors were shadows instead of men. Nor is this comparison a strained
one, for our way-worn voyagers, with their tangled locks and unshorn
beards, rendered white as snow by the fine sand with which the air in
these regions is often filled, had a weird and ghost-like look, which the
gloomy scene around, with its frowning rocks and moonlit sands, tended to
enhance and heighten."

It is said, as illustrative of Kit's promptness of action, that one night
an inexperienced guard shouted "Indians." In an instant Kit was on his
feet, pistol in hand. A dark object was approaching him. The loss of a
second of time might enable a savage to bury his arrow-head deep in his
side and to disappear in the darkness. Like a flash of lightning Kit fired
and shot _his mule_. It was a false alarm.

The traders arrived safely in Santa Fe. Kit Carson, having faithfully
performed his contract, began to look around for new adventures. Three
hundred and fifty miles south of Santa Fe, there was the Mexican province
of Chihuahua. It was a very rich mining district, and many adventurers had