Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/453

Rh place where I took my first Indian scalp. This was the first time I had ever mentioned it to him and he said that Uncle Kit had told him all about it a long time ago.

On our arrival at Taos we found Uncle Kit suffering severely from the effects of the arrow wound that has twice before been mentioned in this history. He and his wife were glad to see us, and Uncle Kit insisted on my remaining with him and taking charge of his stock. He now had several bands of sheep and some four hundred head of cattle, and not being able to ride and look after the camps, he wanted me to ride from one camp to the other and look after the business in general, for which he offered to pay me well. I agreed to work for him at least two or three months and perhaps longer, provided I liked the business.

After I had been one month at work a wholesale butcher came over from Denver to buy cattle and sheep. I went out and showed him Uncle Kit's, after which we returned to Taos and he closed a trade with Uncle Kit, agreeing to take one hundred head of cattle and one thousand head of sheep. The price to be paid for them I never knew, but he paid a certain portion down and the balance was to be paid the coming October, in Denver City.

I remained with Uncle Kit until the first of October, looking after things in general, when he asked me to accompany him to Denver City, which was one hundred and eighty miles from Taos.

About the middle of the afternoon of the sixth day we rode into Denver, from the southwest. When near where Cherry creek runs through the city we saw an im-