a prayer to the Almighty in thanks for our deliverance thus far.  The pace now became tremendous; and here our grain-fed horses proved to be too much (and their powers of endurance were fully put to the test), for the grass-fed ponies of the Indians.  After a short run, the savages saw that the advantage belonged to us, consequently soon after they halted.  We, however, kept steadily, but with slackened speed, on our course, fearing that some accident might change the happy turn of affairs in their favor.  On finding themselves thwarted in their designs, the Indians fired two or three shots at us, but even these final compliments did not, to use nautical phraseology, make us “heave to.”  We reached the settlement of the Red River in good season, and concluded that we had traveled the distance in about as brief a space of time as it ever had been accomplished either before or since our adventure.  Our horses were so used up by this race that we were obliged to exchange them for fresh ones, on which we finished our journey without further annoyance.  The Indians, in this incursion stole five thousand sheep, besides other property from the Costillo, and killed two men who were traveling behind us and on the same road.  When the bodies of these men were discovered, one of them had a mouthful of bullets, which he had evidently put there in order that he might drop them into his rifle as he should require them, and not be obliged to be delayed in taking them from his ammunition pouch; but, evidently, before he could have used more than one from this supply, he was shot dead.

It cannot be denied but that this outbreak on the part of the Indians, and its subsequent outrages, was the result of mismanagement; and, it is but justice to the reputation of Kit Carson to assert, that it was no fault of his that affairs had terminated so disastrously.  He had used every means which human skill could devise to allay the anger of the Indians.  Had his superiors in power acted with the same discretion and judgment, in all probability the Utahs might have been kept at peace.  It is wonderfully strange that our Government will persist in placing at the head of Indian affairs men who are not practically acquainted with Indian habits, which can only be learned by a long life passed upon the frontiers.  If it was a matter where dollars and cents alone were to be estimated, it might be different; but where valuable lives are legitimately exposed, it seems to us morally wrong to give the control of tribes of wild men to politicians, who are liable to make all kinds of mistakes, and in whom the Indians will not repose the least confidence.  It is because such appointments are made that, in a great measure, the troubles with these border Indians arise; and many is the section of country in western America, where apparently the reward for taking a white man’s scalp is a blazing red or a sky blue blanket, which is paid under the plea of keeping the peace.  This, too, when efficient means and decided measures are the only hopes of a lasting peace.