Leaving ten men in camp to get out stone for the new post, Colonel Bent took a part of his outfit and went to a Kiowa village, about two hundred miles southwest, and remained there all winter, trading with the Kiowas and Comanches. In the spring of 1853 he returned to Big Timbers, when the construction of the new post was begun, and the work continued until completed in the summer of 1854; and it was used as a trading-post until the owner leased it to the government in the autumn of 1859. Colonel Sedgwick had been sent out to fight the Kiowas that year, and in the fall a large quantity of commissary stores had been sent him. Colonel Bent then moved up the river to a point just above the mouth of the Purgatoire, and built several rooms of cottonwood pickets, and there spent the winter. In the spring of 1860, Colonel Sedgwick began the construction of officers' buildings, company quarters, corrals, and stables, all of stone, and named the place Fort Wise, in honour of Governor Wise of Virginia. In 1861 the name was changed to Fort Lyon, in honour of General Lyon, who was killed at the battle of Wilson Creek, Missouri. In the spring of 1866, the Arkansas River overflowed its banks, swept up into the fort, and, undermining the walls, rendered it untenable for military purposes. The camp was moved to a point twenty miles below, and the new Fort Lyon established. The old post was repaired, and used as a stage station by Barlow, Sanderson, and Company, who ran a mail, express, and passenger line between Kansas City and Santa Fe. The contiguous region to Fort William was in the early days a famous hunting-ground. It abounded in nearly every variety of animal indigenous to the mountains and plains, among which were the panther--the so-called California lion of to-day--the lynx, erroneously termed wild cat, white wolf, prairie wolf, silver-gray fox, prairie fox, antelope, buffalo, gray, grizzly and cinnamon bears, together with the common brown and black species, the red deer and the black-tail, the latter the finest venison in the world. Of birds there were wild turkeys, quail, and grouse, besides an endless variety of the smaller-sized families, not regarded as belonging to the domain of game in a hunter's sense. It was a veritable paradise, too, for the trappers. Its numerous streams and creeks were famous for beaver, otter, and mink. Scarcely an acre of the surrounding area within the radius of hundreds of miles but has been the scene of many deadly encounters with the wily red man, stories of which are still current among the few old mountaineers yet living.