five hundred Kiawah Indians, led by their old chief. The Kiawas were friendly to us, and the chief was a particular friend of Jim. He wanted to trade for some of our beaver traps. He kept bidding until he offered two horses for one trap. Jim refused to trade, but he made the chief a present of a trap. After Jim refused to take the horses, a young squaw came running out and offered to give me as fine a buffalo robe as I ever saw; I was in the act of taking it and was congratulating myself on what a fine bed I would have that winter when Jim said, "Will, don't take that. There is more stock on that robe than we can feed this winter. Open the hair and look for yourself."

I did so, and I saw the Grey Backs all through the hair as thick as they could crawl. I had never seen such a sight before, and the reader can imagine my horror. I dropped it so quick that Jonnie West laughed and asked me if it burnt me. The boys had the joke on me the balance of the winter. Most every day they would ask me if I didn't want a present of a Buffalo robe from a young squaw.

A few days after this, we were on our trapping ground, and our winter's work of toil, hardship, and pleasure had begun. We soon had our cabin built in a little valley, which was from a half mile to a mile wide and about eight miles long. On each side of the valley were high cliffs. In places there was a half a mile or more where neither man or beast could climb these cliffs, and we were surprised later on to see the quantity of game of various kinds that came into this valley to winter, such as Elk, Deer, and Antelope. I never, before or since, have seen so many Wild Cats, or Bob Cats, as they were called at that time, and also some cougars.

I remember one little circumstance that occurred later on; it was about the middle of the afternoon; we had all been to our traps and had returned to the cabin with our furs. Jim said, "Will, we will stretch your furs if you will go and shoot a deer for supper."

This suited me, so I took my gun and went outside the door to clean it. Just as I had got through, Jonnie West looked out and said, "Look, Will, there is your deer now; you won't have to hunt him."

I looked, and sure enough, there he was, in about a hundred yards of the cabin. Jim Bridger fired at him and knocked him down, but he got up and ran into a little bunch of brush. I ran to the spot, thinking he was only wounded and that I should have to shoot him again. When I reached the brush, to my surprise, I found five big wildcats, and they all came for me at once. I fired at the leader, and then I did some lively running myself. As soon as I got out of the brush, I called the boys, and we got the cats, the whole of the bunch, and the deer besides, which had not been touched by the cats.

We skinned the cats, and Jim afterwards made a cap out of one of them, and he wore it for several years.

Jonnie West and I were out hunting one day for deer when we discovered two cougars in the grass, and we could not make out what it meant. Finally one made a spring, and it seemed to us that he jumped at least twenty feet, and he landed on a deer, and for a minute or two there was a tussle. While this was going on Jonnie and I were getting closer to them, and when they had the deer killed we were within gunshot of them, and they didn't eat much before we killed them both. We skinned the deer, and also the cougars, and took them to camp, and when we went to Bent's Fort the next spring we got twenty dollars apiece for them, for they were extra large cougars, or mountain lions as they are sometimes called, and their hides are very valuable.

It seems wonderful to me when I think of the amount of game I saw through the country at that time, of all descriptions, some of which in their wild state are now extinct, especially the buffalo and the bison, and all other game that was so plentiful at that time is very scarce all over the west. I believe a man could have seen a thousand antelope any day in the year within five miles of where the city of Denver now stands.

We had splendid success this winter in trapping beaver. It was late in the spring when we left our trapping ground. Just before we pulled out Jim Bridger said, "Boys, I saw a pretty sight this evening out at the point of rocks," which was about a quarter of a mile from our cabin. Jonnie West said, "What did you see, Jim?"

"I saw an old Cinnamon bear and two cubs." Jonnie said, "Why didn't you kill her?"

"I didn't have anything to kill with," Jim replied. "I left my gun in the cabin, but we will all go out in the morning and see if we can find them."

We were all up early in the morning and ready for the bear hunt. Jim told us what route each should take. He said, "Now boys, be careful, for she is an old whale, and if you get in to a fight with her some one will get hurt, or there will be some running done."

I had not gone far when I looked up on a ridge ahead of me and saw what I took to be Mrs. Bruin; I crawled up within gun shot and fired and broke the bear's neck. I rushed up to her expecting to see the cubs. Imagine my surprise when I found only a small bear. In a few moments the boys were there; Jonnie laughed and asked Jim if that bear was the whale he set out to kill. Jim stood and looked at the bear quite a bit before answering. Then he said, "That is a Cinnamon Bear, but where are the cubs?" Jonnie said, "I will bet my hat you didn't see any cubs, Jim, you dreamed it." Jim grinned and answered, "Well, boys I guess you have the drop on me this time."

From then on, all the spring Jim's cubs was a standing joke. In a few days, we pulled out for Bent's Fort; we were late in getting to the Fort with our furs this spring. Mr. Bent asked us why we were so late in getting in. Jonnie replied that Jim kept us hunting for Cub bears all the spring, and as we couldn't find any, it took all our time. Of course they all wanted to know the joke, and when Jonnie told it in his droll way, it made a laugh on Jim. "If you will only quit talking about the cubs," Jim said, "I'll treat all around," which cost him about ten dollars.

After laying around the Fort a few days, Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux hired Jonnie and me to kill meat to supply the table at the boarding house for the summer, that being the only time of the year that the boarding house at the Fort did any business. At this time of the year all of the trappers and hunters were staying at the fort with nothing to do but eat, drink and spend their money that they had earned the winter before. It was no uncommon thing for some of these men to bring from three to four hundred dollars worth of furs to Bent's Fort in the spring, and when fall came and it was time to go back to the trapping ground, they wouldn't have a dollar left, and some of them had to go in debt for their winter outfit.

Jonnie and I had no trouble in keeping plenty of meat on hand, from the fact that buffalo and antelope were very plentiful eight or ten miles from the fort. I remember one little circumstance that occurred this summer. We were out hunting, not far from the Arkansas river, near the city now known as Rocky Ford, Colo. We had camped there the night before. We went out early in the morning to kill some antelope, leaving our horses staked where we had camped. We hadn't gone more than half a mile when we heard a Lofa wolf howl just ahead of us. The Lofa wolf was a very large and ferocious animal and was a terror to the buffalo. When we reached the top of a ridge just ahead of us, looking down into a little valley two or three hundred yards away, we saw five Buffalo cows with their calves, and one large bull, and they were entirely surrounded by Lofa wolves. Jonnie said, "Now, Will, we will see some fun." The cows were trying to defend their calves from the wolves, and the bull started off with his head