A Mrs. White, the wife of a merchant of Santa Fe, had been taken captive with her child, (which was soon killed before her eyes,) by a party of Apaches, who had shot her husband, and all the men of his company, before capturing her. A party of New Mexicans was at once organized to pursue the Indian band, and effect Mrs. White's release if possible. The guidance of this party was entrusted to a neighbor by the name of Watkins Leroux, rather than to Carson. They found the Apache murderers, and Carson was advancing foremost to attack them, when he discovered that the rest of the party were not following; consequently he had to retire, and when the commander ordered the attack to be made, it was too late, for the Indians had murdered Mrs. White and were preparing to escape by flight. Carson tells this story with all the generous magnanimity a great soul exercises in speaking of a failure on the part of a rival; admitting that, if his advice had been followed, they might have saved Mrs. White, but affirming that the command "did what seemed to it the best, and therefore no one has any right to find fault." This occurred in the autumn of eighteen hundred and forty-nine, directly after the commencement of the settlement of Rayedo. Near the close of the following winter, all the animals belonging to the party of ten dragoons which had been stationed there to protect the settlement, were run off by the marauding Apaches, and the two herders having them in charge, were wounded. Early the following morning, Carson and three of the settlers with the ten dragoons, started in pursuit, discovered the Indians--twenty well armed warriors--and four of the party being obliged to stop, because their animals had given out, the remaining ten rode down the Indians, who might themselves have escaped but for their persistance in retaining the stolen horses, which were all recaptured except four, while five of the warriors were killed, and several more wounded. This expedition was planned and executed under the direction of Carson, and the fact that he was their leader gave every man confidence, as they knew that with him an engagement implied success or death. The next spring Carson went to Fort Laramie with a drove of horses and mules, making the journey successfully and pleasantly in company with Timothy Goodell, another old mountaineer, being the observed of all observers to the large numbers of overland emigrants to California whom he met at the fort, where Goodell left him to go to California. Carson found a Mexican to attend him upon his return, and taking a circuitous course, he managed to avoid the Apaches; often traveling by moon-light, and taking their animals into a quiet nook, and climbing a tree for a little sleep during the day, they finally reached the Mexican settlements in safety.