The sight of white men roused in them fear mingled with a desire for blood. They seemed still more cruel than their brethren in Nebraska; their stature was loftier, their complexion much darker, their wide nostrils and quick glances gave them the expression of wild beasts caught in a trap. Their movements, too, had almost the quickness and timidity of beasts. While speaking, they put their thumbs to their cheeks, which were painted in white and blue stripes. Their weapons were tomahawks and bows, the latter made of a certain kind of firm mountain hawthorn, so rigid that my men could not bend them. These savages, who in considerable numbers might have been very dangerous, were distinguished by invincible thievishness; happily they were few, the largest party that we met not exceeding fifteen. They called themselves Tabeguachis, Winemucas, and Yampas. Our scout, Wichita, though expert in Indian dialects, could not understand their language; hence we could not make out in any way why all of them, pointing to the Rocky Mountains and then to us, closed and opened their palms, as if indicating some number.
The road became so difficult, that with the greatest exertion, we made barely fifteen miles a day. At the same time our horses began to die, being less enduring than mules and more choice of food; men failed in strength too, for during whole days they had to draw wagons with the mules, or to hold them in dangerous places. By degrees unwillingness seized the weakest; some got the rheumatism, and one, through whose mouth blood came from exertion, died in three days, cursing the hour in which it came to his head to leave New York. We were then in the worst part of the road, near the little river called by the Indians Kiowa. There were no cliffs there as high as on the Eastern boundary of Colorado; but the whole country, as far as the eye could reach, was bristling with fragments thrown in disorder one upon another. These fragments, some standing upright, others overturned, presented the appearance of ruined graveyards with fallen headstones. Those were really the “Bad Lands” of Colorado, answering to those which extended northward over Nebraska. With the greatest effort we escaped from them in the course of a week.