The following morning Johnnie West, Juan and I loaded up and
started for Santa Fe, and Uncle Kit went on to Los Angeles with
Col. Fremont, as guide.

Before I left camp that morning, Col. Fremont, unbeknown to Uncle
Kit, came to me and said:

"Willie, in about a year from now I will be on my way back to St.
Louis, and I will take you home with me if you would like to go. I
will send you to school and make a man of you. You are too good a
boy to spend your life here, in this wild country."

But I told him I was perfectly satisfied to remain with Kit
Carson.

Had Uncle Kit known of that conversation I think he would have
been very much displeased, and it might have caused serious
trouble. Therefore I kept my own counsel and did not mention the
matter to Carson.

Us boys were four weeks making the return trip to Santa Fe, and we
did not see a hostile Indian on the way. I wondered much at that,
but a year or two afterward Uncle Kit told me that the Apaches saw
us every day and were protecting us, for he had seen Tawson on his
return and the chief told him that we had gone through safe.

We arrived at Santa Fe about the first of October, and there I met
Jim Hughes, who was waiting our arrival, and I was very glad to
see him. I gave him a letter that Uncle Kit had sent him