In the autumn, just before the snow commences to fall, the deer leave the high mountains, and seek the valleys, and also the Elk and Bison; no game stays in the high mountains but the Mountain Sheep, and he is very peculiar in his habits. He invariably follows the bluffs of streams. In winter and summer, his food is mostly moss, which he picks from the rocks; he eats but very little grass. But there is no better meat than the mountain sheep. In the fall, the spring lambs will weigh from seventy-five to a hundred pounds, and are very fat and as tender as a chicken; but this species of game is almost extinct in the United States; I have not killed one in ten years. We stayed in our camp at the head of the Arkansas river until sometime in April, then we pulled out for Bent's Fort to dispose of our pelts. We staid at the Fort three days. The day we left the Fort, we met a runner from Col. Freemont with a letter for Carson. Freemont wanted Carson to bring a certain amount of supplies to his camp and then to act as a guide across the mountains to Monterey, California. The particulars of the contract between Freemont and Carson I never knew, but I know this much, that when we got to Freemont's camp, we found the hardest looking set of men that I ever saw. They had been shut up in camp all winter, and the majority of them had the scurvy, which was brought on by want of exercise and no vegetable food. The most of the supplies we took him were potatoes and onions, and as soon as we arrived in camp the men did not wait to unpack the animals, but would walk up to an animal and tear a hole in a sack and eat the stuff raw the same as if it was apples. In a few days the men commenced to improve in looks and health. Uncle Kit had them to exercise some every day, and in a short time we were on the road for the Pacific Coast. We had no trouble until we crossed the Main Divide of the Rocky Mountains. It was on a stream called the "Blue," one of the tributaries of the Colorado river. We were now in the Ute Indian country, and at this time they were considered one of the most hostile tribes in the west. Of course there was no one in the company that knew what the Ute Indians were but Kit Carson. When we stopped at noon that day Carson told us as we sat eating our luncheon that we were now in the Ute country, and every one of us must keep a look out for himself. He said, "Now, boys, don't any one of you get a hundred yards away from the rest of the company, for the Utes are like flees liable to jump on you at any time or place."