As soon as the whites were discovered, the Indians went into council evidently to decide on the best mode of attacking and making away with them.  Kit Carson, though he did not know that this tribe had declared war, and much less their reasons for so doing, when he first saw them, was not long in coming to a conclusion, from their actions, that there was a screw loose somewhere.  He, therefore, began to act with more than usual sagacity and caution.  He ordered his men to keep their wagons close together, to have their rifles in good trim and be ready for an instant fight.  In this manner, with every man on the watch, he pushed on for a distance of twenty miles.  Although he had left the Indians far behind, he did not relax his vigilance, being still impressed with the belief that a storm was brewing.  His surmises began to be verified soon after, for the Indians, in parties of two, three, and four, appeared in sight, arrayed and painted in their full war costume.  Having approached some of them to within a distance sufficiently near so to do, Kit Carson commenced talking to them in a conciliatory manner.  They were inclined to heed his words; and, in order to make it appear that he was not intimidated by their actions, he went into camp, and invited these advance parties of the Indians to come in and have a talk and smoke with him.  The savages accepted the invitation and were soon seated in a circle.  After the pipe had passed from one to the other, until all present had had a puff or two from it, they began to talk loud among themselves.

At the time we now speak of, several years, as the reader can readily compute, had elapsed since Kit Carson was a hunter at Bent’s Fort, and then well known to most of the Cheyenne nation; but, these few years had so altered him, together with his new style of dress, that it is no doubt that, at first, not one of the Indians remembered ever having seen him before.

Kit Carson remained quiet and allowed the Indians to open the talk, as he was watching to find out what had so suddenly aroused their anger, and he well knew, that if they supposed that he and his men did not understand what they were conversing about, they might refer to the cause of the trouble, and thus give him a clue whereby he might take advantage and form a line of conduct.  It was clear to his mind that the Indians were resolved to have revenge on his party, and that there was time enough to let himself be known to them, which, in their present excited state, would serve him but little.  The Indians had at first conversed in the Sioux tongue.  The reason for this was, to conceal their own nationality and thus, if necessary, in the future, they could shield themselves by laying the massacre, which they were about to commit, on the shoulders of that tribe.  This is a ruse often employed by the Indians; but, in this case, in their heated state they forgot their native cunning and commenced conversing in the language which was