in a dreadfully mangled condition. He was removed to other quarters,
and Williams, who was not to be frightened out of a night's rest,
soon sunk into sound repose.

Williams reached the agency by the time the Kansas Indians arrived
there, and, as he suspected, found that the wily old chief had brought
all his belongings, which he claimed, and the agent made the savages
give up the stolen property before he would pay them a cent of their
annuities. He took his furs down to St. Louis, sold them there
at a good price, and then started back to the Rocky Mountains on
another trapping tour.




CHAPTER III.
EARLY TRADERS.



In 1812 a Captain Becknell, who had been on a trading expedition
to the country of the Comanches in the summer of 1811, and had done
remarkably well, determined the next season to change his objective
point to Santa Fe, and instead of the tedious process of bartering
with the Indians, to sell out his stock to the New Mexicans.
Successful in this, his first venture, he returned to the Missouri
River with a well-filled purse, and intensely enthusiastic over the
result of his excursion to the newly found market.

Excited listeners to his tales of enormous profits were not lacking,