So one day we
determined that we would start alone, and return to the settlement by a
different road. We left Santa Fe and rode towards the north, and it was
not until we had passed Taos, the last Mexican settlement, that we
became ourselves again and recovered our good spirits. Gabriel knew the
road; our number was too small not to find plenty to eat, and as to the
hostile Indians, it was a chance we were willing enough to encounter. A
few days after we had quitted Santa Fe, and when In the neighbourhood
of the Spanish Peaks and about thirty degrees north latitude, we fell in
with a numerous party of the Comanches.
It was the first time we had seen them in a body, and it was a grand
sight. Gallant horsemen they were and well mounted. They were out upon
an expedition against the Pawnee[15] Loups, and they behaved to us with
the greatest kindness and hospitality. The chief knew Gabriel, and
invited us to go in company with them to their place of encampment. The
chief was a tall, fine fellow, and with beautiful symmetry of figure. He
spoke Spanish well, and the conversation was carried on in that tongue
until the evening, when I addressed him in Shoshone, which beautiful
dialect is common to the Comanches, Apaches, and Arrapahoes, and related
to him the circumstances of our captivity on the shores of the Colorado
of the West.
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