"Yes; I have gone down one or two myself from the mountains of Utah,
where the stream, instead of cutting a canon for itself, has behaved for
a bit in the ordinary way and made a valley. Wonderfully good places
they were--plenty of grass, plenty of water, and no end of game. I have
spent some months among them, and got a wonderful lot of skins, beavers
principally of course, but half a dozen mountain lions and two
grizzlies. I did not bring home their skins, you bet. They were too
heavy, and I should not have troubled them if they had not troubled me.
There was good fish, too, in the streams, and I never had a better time.
The red-skins happened to be friendly, and I was with a hunter who had a
red-skin wife and a dozen ponies. If it hadn't been for that I should
soon have had to quit, for it ain't no good hunting if you can't carry
away the skins. As it was I made a good job of it, for I got nigh a
thousand dollars for my skins at Utah.

"Well, here we are at the fort. I guess we may as well make our camp
outside. If you go in you have got to picket your horse here and put
your baggage there and come in at gun-fire, and all sorts of things that
troubles a man who is accustomed to act as he likes."

The horses were soon picketed. "I will go in first and see who is here,
Tom. There are usually a lot of loafing Indians about these forts, and
though it is safe enough to leave our traps, out on the plain, it will
not do here. We must stay with them, or at any rate keep them in sight;
besides, these two horses would be a temptation to any redskin who
happened to want an animal."

"I will wait willingly, Jerry; I should know nobody inside the fort if I
went in. I will see to making a fire and boiling the kettle, and I will