A cloud of dust moving up the valley “at the rate of a horse walking fast” at length announced the approach of the troops. At the head of the column rode General Kearny, behind him a company of the old First United States Dragoons, behind the dragoons a regiment of Missouri volunteer cavalry and two batteries of volunteer artillery, and of infantry but two companies. It was an army of 1,700 men, and yet to the Indians assembled at the fort it must have seemed indeed an army, for perhaps few of them had ever dreamed that there were half as many men in the whole “white tribe.” The column drew near the fort, swinging to the left, forded the river to the Mexican bank, turned again up the valley, and went on its way, a part to the city of Mexico, a part to California, and a part only to Santa Fé, whence but a few months later they would march to avenge the murder of Charles Bent, now doling out mint-juleps to the loitering officers in the little room upstairs in the fort.
There were two or three employees at the fort whose labors never ceased. These were the hunters who were obliged constantly to provide meat for the employees. Though the number of these varied, there might be from sixty to a hundred men employed at the fort, and many of these had families, so that the population was considerable.
For a number of years the principal hunter for the fort was Kit Carson, who was often assisted by a Mexican or two, though in times when work was slack many of the traders, trappers, employees, and teamsters devoted themselves to hunting. Often game could be killed within sight of the post, but at other times it was necessary for the hunter to take with him a wagon or pack-animals, for he might be obliged to go several days’ journey before securing the necessary food. It was the duty of Carson and his assistants to provide meat for the whole post. It was here that in 1843 Carson was married to a Mexican girl.
Though, as already suggested, difficulties sometimes occurred with the Indians, these troubles were very rare; yet the vigilance of the garrison, drilled into them from earliest times by William Bent, never relaxed.
The animals belonging to the fort were a constant temptation to the Indians. The fort stood on the open plain by the riverside, and there was an abundance of good grass close at hand, so that the herd could be grazed within sight of the walls. Even so, however, the Indians occasionally swept off the stock, as in 1839, when a party of Comanches hid in the bushes on the river-bank, ran off every hoof of stock belonging to the post, and killed the Mexican herder.