spring gushing out of the side of a cliff. This was about 4 o'clock in
the afternoon. They reached the stone ridge about dusk. "Carson," said
Willis, "tell us what to do, I know nothing about fighting these wild
devils." Kit Carson told him to put his soldiers to piling stone and
make a breastwork to hide behind. He told Willis to send some of the
soldiers to the spring and build up a wall several feet all around it
and put some of the soldiers in there for protection and at the same
time have a place to get water. The soldiers had not a minute to lose.
The Indians bore down upon them and sent arrows into their midst, but
did no damage. Kit Carson told a soldier to put a hat on a pole and lift
it up, that he believed some Indians were hidden in a wild plum thicket
close by; if so, they would shoot at the hat. This hat trick was tried
several times. Kit Carson had located the Indians pretty well by this
time and told Col. Willis to set his cannon so it would shoot very low,
to barely miss the ground, and then he thought they would have a chance
to snatch a "piece of sleep" before daylight. When the cannon exploded
the Indians retreated, taking with them their dead and wounded and did
not come back any more that, night. An Indian will risk his life rather
than leave a dead member of his band in the white man's possession. It
is an old superstition that if a warrior loses his scalp he forfeits his
hope of ever reaching the "happy hunting ground." Col. Willis and Kit
Carson camped there until two o'clock in the morning when they went down
off of the stone ridge out onto the open prairie twenty miles distant,
where they again camped. After dark they again started out on the trail.
Indians hardly ever attack at night. Nevertheless, the Indians began to
congregate until they numbered several thousand and chased Col. Willis
and Kit Carson 300 miles. Under the clever management of Kit Carson's
Indian tricks Col. Willis and his soldiers all escaped without a loss of
a man or getting one injured. Kit Carson told me that he was "mighty
thankful that the gol-derned grass was too green to burn."