In the following February, Col.  Beall learned that on the Arkansas River there were congregated a large body of Indians, who had quite a number of Mexicans in bondage.  He felt it to be his duty to visit these savages and endeavor to have them deliver up all such captives, using peaceable means to accomplish this result in the first instance; and, should they fail, he made up his mind to resort to more forcible and potent arguments.  With this determination, and with two companies of dragoons to back him and Kit Carson as his guide, he set out on his mission.  In due time he reached the Arkansas, and there found congregated four tribes of Indians who numbered in the vicinity of two thousand souls.  Their object in thus coming together was to have a grand council and lay out plans for the future, and also to meet their agent.  This agent, who was an experienced mountaineer, informed the colonel that, considering the present state of ill feeling existing among these Indians towards the whites, it would be useless to make the demand for the prisoners; and as to using force, it would almost certainly prove a failure, when such a large number of well armed warriors were arrayed against him.  It required a great deal of persuasion to bring the colonel around to this mode of thinking; but, at last he yielded to the advice of his friends and concluded to make no demonstration against the Indians at the present time, concluding, as his anger cooled, that it was the wisest policy to await a more favorable opportunity, when a treaty could be made with them, in which there could be an article inserted that would stipulate for the restoration of the captives.

In parting with these red men without accomplishing the main object for which they came, both officers and men felt that their labors had not been entirely thrown away.  Their presence must have left lasting impressions on the minds of the savages, in showing them that they no longer had poorly clad and poorly armed Mexican soldiers to deal with.

On arriving again in Taos, Kit Carson returned to his home to ruminate over what was best for him to take up as a business for the future.  He revolved in his thoughts his past career, and, in the end, finished the mental study by resolving to give up his roaming life, as he rightly considered that now was the time, if ever, that he should be making a substantial home for himself and family, before old age crept upon and disabled him from the undertaking.  About the time that he was in this frame of mind, his old mountaineer friend, Maxwell, was about going to a pretty little valley called by the Mexicans Rayado.  Maxwell proposed to Kit Carson to join him in the enterprise of building a ranche on the site which he had selected.  This offer the latter gladly accepted.  Rayado would have, long before, been settled by the Mexicans, had they not been deterred by its exposure, and consequent inviting position for Indian depredations.  The