By watching for signs and being continually on the alert, Kit Carson discovered the Indians and their village without exposing his own person to view. He immediately secreted himself in an out-of-the-way place and remained until the coming on of darkness; when, he passed safely by the camp of the savages. In the course of a few days he reached Taos and handed his dispatch to the _Alcalde_ of the town to be forwarded to Santa Fe. As had been previously agreed upon, he waited here for an answer with which he was to return. At Taos Carson was informed that Armijo had already sent out one hundred Mexican soldiers to seek his caravan and that the General himself, in command of six hundred more, was soon to follow after. It was afterwards learned that this unfortunate band of one hundred men went as far as the Arkansas River, but could not find any traces of the train of wagons, it not having completed that much of its journey; therefore, they commenced to retrace their steps, but had proceeded only a few miles, when they were suddenly attacked by the Texians, who succeeded in massacring all but one man. This survivor had succeeded in catching, in the heat of the battle, a fully equipped Texan horse which was loose. Mounting him, he made off in the direction of Santa Fe; and, at Cold Springs came upon the camp of Armijo, to whom he reported proceedings. The narration of this sad story so dampened the courage of the General and his men as to cause them to make a precipitous retreat. The spot where this slaughter took place has since gone by the name of the "battle ground" and many are the bleached human bones that are still to be found there.