After we had buried the emigrants, which took nearly two days to do, Carson asked the men who had escaped being massacred where they were going and what they intended to do.

One of them answered, “If you men will stay with us all night, we will talk it over and decide what we had better do.”

Carson said we had better stay with them that night, so we made a fire and prepared supper, and while we were eating we saw several more wagons coming down the trail near the river.

Uncle Kit said to the men that were with us, “Now is your chance, boys.  You can join this train and go home with them.”

When the teams drove up, the three men and the boy we had left at the fort were with them.

They all camped there with us, and after talking with the men, we found out that none of them claimed the teams and wagons that had been found.  The owners of them had all been killed.  The survivors did not know what to do with the wagons and their contents, and they appealed to Uncle Kit for advice in the matter.

Carson said, “I do not see that you can do better than take them along with you.  If you leave them here, somebody will come along and take them, and they belong as much to you as to anyone.”

So the next morning they rigged up five wagons with three yoke of cattle to a wagon, leaving eight wagons with their contents standing where their owners had left them when the Indians had killed them.

As they were ready to pull out, Uncle Kit went to them and asked them to give him their names and where they lived, “for,” he said, “if I ever hear where any of the people lived who owned the property you have taken with you, I want to write to you so you can give them to their families.”

We then bid them all good bye, and they started on their journey home, Carson having advised them not to molest the Indians no matter how many or how few they might meet on their way, and then the Indians would not molest them, as they were a friendly tribe, and that was the last we ever saw or heard of that party.

We now turned back to Bent’s Fort and reached there just before night.  Col.  Bent’s herder took care of our horses.

That night Carson, Bridger and I consulted together, and Bridger and I decided to go with Uncle Kit to his home at Taos, Mexico, and stay a month with him, but fate seemed to step in and change my plans.

The next morning when the herder went out to get our horses he found a man crawling along, trying to get to the Fort, who was nearly starved and so weak that he could hardly speak.