"Carraho, American.!" said the Mexican, levelling his gun at the speaker. In an instant a pistol-shot from the latter laid him prostrate, — the ball entering his chest near the heart. No further resistance was offered, and the assailants retired with their booty.
The next morning, however, they returned, and the two parties compromised the matter by certain conciliatory arrangements, which resulted in the Americans giving up the captured animals, on condition that the Mexicans should in future be less insolent and conduct their trade on more reasonable terms.
The wounded man recovered in three or four weeks, and was now ready to accompany his party on their homeward-bound journey.
A large number of Mexicans are employed at the different trading posts in this vicinity. They prove quite useful as horse-guards, and also in taking care of cattle and doing the drudgery connected with these establishments.
Their wages vary from four to ten dollars per month, which they receive in articles of traffic at an exhorbitant price;—viz: calicoes, (indifferent quality,) from fifty cents to one dollar per yard; blue cloth, from five to ten dollars per do.; powder, two dollars per lb.; lead, one do. do.; coffee, one do. do.; tobacco, from two to three do. do.; second hand robes, two dollars apiece, —and everything else in proportion.
Their wages for a whole year, in actual value, bring them but a trifling and almost nameless consideration. Notwithstanding, these miserable creatures prefer travelling four hundred miles to hire for such diminutive wages, rather than to remain in their own country and work for less. They know of no better way to get a living, and are, therefore, happy in their ignorance, and contentedly drag out a wretched existence as best they may.
After a period of service they generally return home laden with the paltry proceeds of their toil, and, yielding to the impulses of custom, a single fandango is sufficient to leave them penniless like the squalid crowd with whom they mingle.
A week's stay at the Fort restored me to health and soundness from the debilitating effects of the fever and ague, without a resort to medicine. This
disease (the first and only attack of which I ever experienced) had made fearful inroads upon my strength during the short interval of its continuance, and rendered me unfit for travelling;—but, a change of climate and the inhalation of the pure mountain air effected a permanent and speedy cure, in a much less time than I had reason to expect.
Fort Lancaster occupies a pleasant site upon the south bank of the Platte river, about nine hundred miles from its mouth, and seven hundred and twenty from Independence, in lat. 40° 12' 25" north, long. 105° 53' 11" west from Greenwich. The distance from this point to the dividing ridge of the Rocky Mountains is about thirty-five miles, and from Taos, in New Mexico, between three and four hundred miles.
Long's Peak with its eternal snow appears in distinct view to the westward, and imparts to the sunset scenery a beauty and grandeur rarely witnessed in any country. This peak is one of the highest of the mountain range, being upwards of 13,500 feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico, and issues
