We crossed over to the west side to a cove that ran back some twelve miles from the main valley; here, we decided, was the best place to establish our winter quarters. Every little mountain stream in the valley was alive with beaver, and Uncle Kit thought it so late that we would not be bothered by the Indians that fall, but, that we would have to get out early the following spring. Feeling perfectly safe, we built our cabin this winter entirely on top of the ground, consequently we were not long in getting our winter quarters completed and were soon ready to start in trapping. We had excellent success this winter; very little snow to contend with, making it much better getting around than usual and an easier task to look after strings of traps. In those cases each man had his string of traps, and it was his business to go to each trap every day, take the beaver out, skin them, set the traps, carry the skins home and stretch them. Sometimes we would trap as far as seven miles from camp, that being the outside limit. After we had trapped here about three weeks there came a light fall of snow which drove most of the game to the valley, and we experienced no trouble in getting all the meat we wanted close to camp, in fact we could often kill deer and antelope from our cabin door. The second morning after the snowfall, Uncle Kit, Johnnie West and myself all started down the valley to took after our traps. We went about a mile together, I left the other two, my traps being the farthest away, some three miles down the valley. After leaving the other two I struck out down the valley on a turkey trot, that being my usual gait when alone. I had not gone far when I heard two gun shots. Thinking that Uncle Kit and Johnnie had been attacked by the Indians, I turned in the direction that I heard the shooting, and ran back much faster than I had come, but had not gone far when I saw ahead of me, up the narrow valley, a band of about twenty bison coming direct for me. I thought by shooting the leader it might check their speed and perhaps cause them to change their course. So I brought my gun to my face and dropped the leader, but it neither caused the others to halt or change their course, and they were making a bee line for me, and there was not a tree in reach large enough for me to climb nor a place of any kind that I could hide.