While on the Colorado, Young's party discovered a company of Indians,
(with whom they had had a previous skirmish,) as they were coming out
from Los Angelos, and charging suddenly among them, succeeded in taking
a large herd of cattle from them in the Indians' own style. The same
week an Indian party came past their camp in the night, with a drove of
a hundred horses, evidently just stolen from a Mexican town in Sonora.
The trappers, with their guns for their pillows, were ready in an
instant for the onslaught, and captured these horses also, the Indians
hurrying away for fear of the deadly rifle. The next day they selected
such as they wanted from the herd, choosing of course the finest, and
turning the rest loose, to be taken again by the Indians, or to become
the wild mustangs that roamed the plains of Northern Mexico, in droves
of tens of thousands, and which could be captured and tamed only by the
use of the lasso.
Mr. Young and his party trapped down the Colorado and up the Gila with
success, then crossed to the vicinity of the New Mexican copper mines,
where they left their furs and went to Santa Fe. Having procured there
license to trade with the Indians about the copper mines, they returned
thither for their furs, went back to Santa Fe and disposed of them to
great advantage. The party disbanded with several hundred dollars
apiece, which most of them expended as sailors do their earnings when
they come into port. Of course Carson was hail fellow well met with them
for a time. He had not hitherto taken the lesson that all have to learn,
viz., that the ways of pleasure are deceitful paths; and to resist
temptation needs a large amount of courage--larger perhaps than to
encounter any physical danger; at least the moral courage it requires is
of a higher tone than the physical courage which would carry one through
a fight with a grizzly bear triumphantly; that the latter assists the
former; indeed that the highest moral courage must be aided by physical
bravery, but that the latter may exist entirely independently of the
former.
Carson learned during this season of hilarity the necessity of saying
No! and he did so persistently, knowing that if he failed in this he
would be lost to himself and to everything dear in life. He was now
twenty-one, and though the terrible ordeal of poverty had been nobly
borne, and he had conquered, the latter ordeal of temptation from the
sudden possession of what was to him a large sum of money, had proved
for once, too much. And it is well for him perhaps it was so; as it
enabled him to sow his wild oats in early youth.
It is not improbable that some of this party belonged to the class of
Canadians called _coureurs des bois_, whose habits Mr. Irving thus
describes in his Astoria:
"A new and anomalous class of men gradually grew out of this trade.
These were called _coureurs des bois_, rangers of the woods; originally
men who had accompanied the Indians in their hunting expeditions, and
made themselves acquainted with remote tracts and tribes; and who now
became, as it were, pedlers of the wilderness. These men would set out
from Montreal with canoes well stocked with goods, with arms and
ammunition, and would make their way up the mazy and wandering rivers
that interlace the vast forests of the Canadas, coasting the most remote
lakes, and creating new wants and habitudes among the natives.
Sometimes they sojourned for months among them, assimilating to their
tastes and habits with the happy facility of Frenchmen; adopting in some
degree the Indian dress, and not unfrequently taking to themselves
Indian wives.
"Twelve, fifteen, eighteen months would often elapse without any tidings
of them, when they would come sweeping their way down the Ottawa in full
glee, their canoes laden down with packs of beaver skins. Now came their
turn for revelry and extravagance. 'You would be amazed,' says an old
writer already quoted, 'if you saw how lewd these pedlers are when they
return; how they feast and game, and how prodigal they are, not only in
their clothes, but upon their sweethearts. Such of them as are married
have the wisdom to retire to their own houses; but the bachelors do just
as an East Indiaman and pirates are wont to do; for they lavish, eat,
drink, and play all away as long as the goods hold out; and when these
are gone, they even sell their embroidery, their lace, and their
clothes. This done, they are forced upon a new voyage for subsistence.'"
Many of these _coureurs des bois_ became so accustomed to the Indian
mode of living, and the perfect freedom of the wilderness, that they
lost all relish for civilization, and identified themselves with the
savages among whom they dwelt, or could only be distinguished from them
by superior licentiousness.
In the autumn Carson joined another trapping party under Mr.
Fitzpatrick, whom we shall have frequent occasion to mention hereafter.
They proceeded up the Platte and Sweet Water past Goose Creek to the
Salmon River, where they wintered, like other parties, sharing the good
will of the Nez Perces Indians, and having the vexations of the
Blackfeet for a constant fear. Mr. Fitzpatrick, less daring than Carson,
declined sending him to punish this tribe for their depredations.
In the spring they came to Bear river, which flows from the north to
Salt Lake. Carson and four men left Mr. Fitzpatrick here, and went ten
days to find Captain Gaunt in the place called the New Park, on the head
waters of the Arkansas, where they spent the trapping season, and
wintered. While the party were wintering in camp, being robbed of some
of their horses by a band of sixty Crow Indians, Carson, as usual, was
appointed to lead the party sent in pursuit of the plunderers. With only
twelve men he took up the trail, came upon the Indians in one of their
strongholds, cut loose the animals, which were tied within ten feet of
the fort of logs in which the enemy had taken shelter, attacked them,
killed five of their warriors, and made good his retreat with the
recovered horses; an Indian of another tribe who was with the trappers
bringing away a Crow scalp as a trophy.[C]
In the spring, while trapping on the Platte River, two men belonging to
the party deserted and robbed a _cache_, or underground deposit of furs,
which had been made by Captain Gaunt, in the neighborhood. Carson, with
only one companion, went off in pursuit of the thieves, who, however,
were never heard of afterwards.
Not finding the plunderers, Carson and his companion remained at the old
camp on the Arkansas, where the _cache_ had been made, until they were
relieved by a party sent out from the United States with supplies for
Captain Gaunt's trappers. They were soon after joined by a party of
Gaunt's men, and started to his camp. On their way they had repeated
encounters with Indians attempting to steal their horses, but easily
beat them off and saved their property.
On one occasion when Carson and the other trappers were out in search
of _beaver sign_, they came suddenly upon a band of sixty warriors well
armed and mounted. In the presence of such a force their only safety was
in flight. Amid a shower of bullets from the Indian rifles, they made
good their escape. Carson considered this one of his narrowest escapes.