When We Stopped At Noon, We Were
Within Six Or Eight Miles Of The Pueblo.
Setting out again, we found
by the fresh tracks that a horseman had just been out to reconnoiter
us; he had circled half round the camp, and then galloped back full
speed for the Pueblo.
What made him so shy of us we could not
conceive. After an hour's ride we reached the edge of a hill, from
which a welcome sight greeted us. The Arkansas ran along the valley
below, among woods and groves, and closely nestled in the midst of
wide cornfields and green meadows where cattle were grazing rose the
low mud walls of the Pueblo.
CHAPTER XXI
THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT
We approached the gate of the Pueblo. It was a wretched species of
fort of most primitive construction, being nothing more than a large
square inclosure, surrounded by a wall of mud, miserably cracked and
dilapidated. The slender pickets that surmounted it were half broken
down, and the gate dangled on its wooden hinges so loosely, that to
open or shut it seemed likely to fling it down altogether. Two or
three squalid Mexicans, with their broad hats, and their vile faces
overgrown with hair, were lounging about the bank of the river in
front of it. They disappeared as they saw us approach; and as we
rode up to the gate a light active little figure came out to meet us.
It was our old friend Richard. He had come from Fort Laramie on a
trading expedition to Taos; but finding, when he reached the Pueblo,
that the war would prevent his going farther, he was quietly waiting
till the conquest of the country should allow him to proceed.
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