Messrs. McKnight,[13] Beard, and Chambers, with about a dozen comrades,
started with a supply of goods across the unknown plains, and by
good luck arrived safely at Santa Fe. Once under the jurisdiction
of the Mexicans, however, their trouble began. All the party were
arrested as spies, their wares confiscated, and themselves
incarcerated at Chihuahua, where the majority of them were kept for
almost a decade. Beard and Chambers, having by some means escaped,
returned to St. Louis in 1822, and, notwithstanding their dreadful
experience, told of the prospects of the trade with the Mexicans
in such glowing colours that they induced some individuals of small
capital to fit out another expedition, with which they again set out
for Santa Fe.

It was really too late in the season; they succeeded, however,
in reaching the crossing of the Arkansas without any difficulty,
but there a violent snowstorm overtook them and they were compelled
to halt, as it was impossible to proceed in the face of the blinding
blizzard. On an island[14] not far from where the town of Cimarron,
on the Santa Fe Railroad, is now situated, they were obliged to
remain for more than three months, during which time most of their
animals died for want of food and from the severe cold. When the
weather had moderated sufficiently to allow them to proceed on
their journey, they had no transportation for their goods and were
compelled to hide them in pits dug in the earth, after the manner
of the old French voyageurs in the early settlement of the continent.
This method of secreting furs and valuables of every character
is called caching, from the French word "to hide." Gregg thus
describes it:

The cache is made by digging a hole in the ground, somewhat