With the Yutas, Killbuck and La Bonté remained during the winter; and when the spring sun had opened the icebound creeks, and melted the snow on the mountains, and its genial warmth had expanded the earth and permitted the roots of the grass to "live" once more, and throw out green and tender shoots, the two trappers bade adieu to the hospitable Indians, who broke up their village in order to start for the valleys of the Del Norte. As they followed the trail from the Bayou, at sundown, just as they thought of camping, they observed ahead of them a solitary horseman * riding along, followed by three mules. His hunting-frock of fringed buckskin, and the rifle resting across the horn of his saddle, at once proclaimed him white; but as he saw the mountaineers winding through the canon, driving before them half-a-dozen horses, he judged they might possibly be Indians and enemies, the more so as their dress was not the usual costume of the whites. The trappers, therefore, saw the stranger raise the rifle in the hollow of his arm, and gathering up his horse, ride steadily to meet them, as soon as he observed they were but two; two to one in mountain calculation being scarcely considered odds, if red skin to white. * Evidently Ruxton himself. (Ed.) However, on nearing them, the stranger discovered his mistake, and throwing his rifle across the saddle once more reined in his horse and waited their approach; for the spot where he then stood presented an excellent camping-ground, with abundance of dry wood and convenient water. "Where from, stranger?" "The divide, and to the Bayou for meat; and you are from there, I see. Any buffalo come in yet?" "Heap, and seal-fat at that. What's the sign out on the plains?" "War-party of Rapahos passed Squirrel at sundown yesterday, and nearly raised my animals. Sign, too, of more on left fork of Boiling Spring. No buffalo between this and Bijou. Do you feel like camping?" "_Well_, we do. But whar's your campan-yeros?" "I'm alone." "Alone? Wagh! how do you get your animals along?" "I go ahead, and they follow the horse." "Well, that beats all! That's a smart-looking hoss, now; and runs some, I'm thinking." "Well, it does." "Whar's them mules from? They look like Californy." "Mexican country--away down south." "H----! Whar's yourself from?" "There away, too." "What's beaver worth in Taos?" "Dollar." "In Saint Louiy?" "Same." "H--! Any call for buckskin?" "A heap! The soldiers in Santa Fé are half froze for leather; and moccasins fetch two dollars easy." "Wagh! How's trade on Arkansa, and what's doin' to the Fort?" "Shians at Big Timber, and Bent's people trading smart. On North Fork, Jim Waters got a hundred pack right off, and Sioux making more." "Whar's Bill Williams?" "Gone under, they say: the Diggers took his hair." "How's powder goin'?" "Two dollars a pint." "Bacca?" "A plew a plug." "Got any about you?" "Have _so_." "Give us a chaw; and now let's camp."