One reason for doing all I could to facilitate the immediate departure
of the Californians was that my men were anxious to move into the
cabins at once.

With my first glance at the encampment, it had seemed to me too open
to surprise. The adjacent forest-clad point crept up near the left
flank, offering an effectual screen to an attacking party, and the
overlooking sentinel at the guard-house did not have a range of vision
to the rear of more than fifty yards. He was not on the summit of the
ridge by at least half that distance, and walked along the side of the
guard-house next the cabins. He could see nothing of the surface of
the valley to the west of the ridge, and when passing along the front
of the building, as he paced backward and forward, he saw nothing to
the rear of his beat.

I expressed my opinion of the situation to the volunteer captain, but
he replied, "Pshaw! you might as well take the sentinel off, for all
the good he does as a lookout for Indians."

"Have you seen none?"

"Not a solitary moccasin, except an occasional Pueblo, since I've been
here--eleven months."

"I suppose you have scouted the country thoroughly?"

"There isn't a trail within thirty miles that I do not know. These
bundles of wolf-skins and other pelts you see going into the wagons
are pretty good evidence that my men know the country."