attitude, refused to give up the criminals, and fiercely attacking the
Mission party, drove them back with loss.

The Mission applied to the trappers for assistance. The request was
promptly granted. Such a victory would puff up the Indians, render them
insolent, and encourage them to make war upon other parties of the whites.
Eleven volunteers were selected for the expedition, and the young and
fragile Kit Carson was entrusted with the command. In manners he was
gentle as a girl, with a voice as soft as that of a woman. He had no
herculean powers of muscle, but he had mind, mental powers which had been
developed in a hundred emergencies. And these stout, hardy veterans of
the wilderness seem with one accord to have decided that he was the
fitting one to lead them into battle, where they were to encounter perhaps
hundreds of savage warriors.

[Illustration]

Cautiously Kit Carson led his little band so as to approach the Indian
village unperceived. At a given signal they raised the war-whoop and
impetuously charged into the cluster of wigwams. As the terrified warriors
rushed out of the huts, all unprepared for battle, these unerring marksmen
laid them low. One-third of the warriors were slain. The rest fled in
dismay. The village was captured with the women and the children. The
victorious Carson then demanded the immediate surrender of the criminals.
The next day they were brought in, strongly bound, and delivered to the
Mission. With his heroic little band Kit Carson returned to the
encampment, apparently unconscious that he had performed any unusual feat.

The trappers purchased of the Mission sixty horses, paying for them in
beaver skins, which always had a cash value. These horses were