About eighty miles northeast of Santa Fe there was another Spanish settlement, weird-like in its semi-barbarous, semi-civilized aspects, with its huts of sun-baked clay, its Catholic priests, its Mexican Indians and its half-breeds.

It was a small, lonely settlement, whose population lived mainly, like the Indians, upon corn-meal and the chase.

Kit ever kept his trusty rifle with him.

His gun and hatchet constituted his purse, furnishing him with food and lodging.
It was a mountainous region; here in one of the dells, Kit came across the solitary hut of a mountaineer by the name of Kin Cade.

They took a mutual liking to each other.