In the spring, Kit Carson proposed a different plan of operations; he
went to hunt on the streams in the vicinage of his winter's camp with
only a single companion. The Utah Indians, into whose country he came,
were also friends of Carson, and, unmolested in his business, his
efforts were crowned with abundant success. He took his furs to Robideau
fort, and with a party of five went to Grand River, and thence to
Brown's Hole on Green River for the winter.
In the following spring he went to the Utah country, to the streams that
flow into Great Salt Lake on the South, which was rich in furs and of
exceeding beauty, with the points of grand old snow mountains ever in
sight, around him.
From here he went to the New Fork, and as it was afterward described by
a party for whom Carson was the guide, we shall not give the
description at this point of our narrative. Again he trapped among the
Utahs, and disposed of his furs at Robideau Fort; but now the prices did
not please him. Beaver fur was at a discount, and the trade of the
trapper becoming unprofitable.
Baird, in his general report upon mammals, uses the following language,
which is appropriate in this connection:
"The beaver once inhabited all of the globe lying in the northern
temperate zone; yet from Europe, China, and all the eastern portion of
the United States, it has been entirely exterminated, and a war so
universal and relentless has been waged upon this defenceless animal,
his great intelligence has been so generally opposed by the intelligence
of man, it has seemed certain, unless some kind providence should
interpose, that the castor, like its congener, the Castorides, would
soon be found only in a fossil state.
"Happily that providence did interpose, through a certain ingenious
somebody, who first suggested the use of silk in the place of fur for
the covering of hats. The beaver were not yet exterminated from Western
America, and now, since they are not "worth killing," in those
inhospitable regions, where there is no encouragement for American
enterprise or cupidity, we may hope that the beaver will there retain
existence, in a home exclusively their own.
"The price of beaver skins has so much diminished that they were offered
to some of the party at twenty-five cents by the bale."
Carson had pursued the business of trapping for eight years, and his
life had been one of unceasing toil, of extreme hardship, full of
danger, yet withal full of interest. More than this, while the lack of
early scientific training had prevented him from making that record of
his travels, which would have given the world the benefit of his
explorations, he had treasured in his memory the knowledge of
localities, of their conditions, and seasons, and advantages, which in
the good time coming, would enable him to associate his labors with
another, who possessed the scientific attainments which Carson lacked,
and who with Carson's invaluable assistance would come to be known world
wide as a bold explorer, and who, but for Carson's experience, where
such experience was a chief requisite to success, might have failed in
his first efforts in the grand enterprise entrusted to him.
Carson knew the general features of the country, its mountains, plains,
and rivers, and the minor points of animal and vegetable productions,
from the head waters of the "monarch of rivers," to the mouth of the
Colorado, and from the southern Arkansas to the Columbia, better,
perhaps, than any one living, though yet but twenty-five years of age.
We left Carson at Robideau Fort, tired of the pursuit of trapping, as
soon as it had become unprofitable, and while there, he arranged with
three or four other trappers, to come down to Bent's Fort. The trip was
like others made at this season, through a country where the rifle would
supply food for the party, and arriving at Bent's Fort, where his name
was already well-known, Carson could not long be idle. He engaged
himself to Messrs. Bent and St. Vrain, as hunter to the fort, preferring
this by far to the idea of seeking employment nearer civilized life.
Indeed no situation could have pleased him better, if we may judge from
the fact that he continued in it for eight years, and until the
connection with his employers was broken by the death of one of the
partners, Col. Bent.
Gov. Bent, since appointed to the office of chief magistrate of New
Mexico, by the United States Government, had been killed by Mexican
Indians, and was universally mourned by Americans and Indians wherever
he was known. Mr. St. Vrain, the other partner, was active during the
Mexican war, since the date of which we write, still lives, and is
esteemed, as a father, by many an early mountaineer. Carson owed him
gratitude for kindly sympathy and words of counsel, when yet a youth he
was commencing his mountain life, and Dr. Peters, the first biographer
of Kit Carson, dedicates his book to Col. St. Vrain, asserting that he
was the first to discover and direct Carson's talents to the path in
which they were employed. For both of these gentlemanly proprietors,
Carson cherished a warm friendship, nor was there ever an unpleasant
occurrence between them.
When game was plenty, he supplied the forty mouths to be filled with
ease, but when it was scarce, his task was sometimes difficult, but
skill and experience enabled him to triumph over every obstacle.
It is not strange that with such long experience Carson became the most
skillful of hunters, and won the name of the "Nestor of the Rocky
Mountains." Among the Indians he had earned the undisputed title of
"Monarch of the Prairies."
But while he killed thousands of elk, deer, and antelope, nor disdained
the rabbit and the grouse, and took the wild goose on the wing, of all
the game of beast or bird, he liked the best to hunt the buffalo, for
there was an excitement in the chase of that noble animal which aroused
his spirits to the highest pitch of excitement.
Assuredly, Christopher Carson's _is_ "a life out of the usual routine,
and checkered with adventures which have sorely tested the courage and
endurance of this wonderful man." Col. St. Vrain, in the preface to
Peters' Life of Carson, says,
"Entering upon his life work at the age of seventeen, choosing now to
think for himself, nor follow the lead of those who would detain him in
a quiet life, while he felt the restless fire 'in his bones,' that
forbade his burying his energy in merely mechanical toil, he had yet
been directed in his choice, by the fitness for it the pursuits of youth
had given, and spurning the humdrum monotony of the shop, gave himself
entirely to what would most aid him in attaining the profession he had
chosen. We must admire such spirit in a youth, for it augurs well for
the energy and will power of the manhood; therefore, when the biographer
says of Christopher Carson, that the neighbors who knew him, predicted
an uncommon life in the child with whom they hunted, and conceded to him
positions, as well as privileges, that were not accorded to common men,
with his life till thirty-three before us, we feel that he has fulfilled
the hope of early promise, with a noble manhood."
We have followed Carson's pathway, without much of detail, to the
localities where he practised the profession he had chosen, until we saw
him leave it because it ceased longer to afford compensation for his
toil, and during as long a period we have written of his quiet pursuit
of the, to him, pleasant, but laborious life of a hunter; unless we must
class the latter eight years with the former, and assume each as a part
of the profession he had chosen.
In all, with perhaps the exception of a few weeks at Santa Fe, when
still in his minority, we have found him ever strong to resist the
thousand temptations to evil with which his pathway was beset, and which
drew other men away. Strong ever in the maintenance of the integrity of
his manhood, even when the convivial circle and the game had a brief
fascination for him, they taught him the lesson which he needed to
learn, that only by earnest resistance, can evil be overcome; and thus
he was enabled to admonish others against those temptations which had
once overcome even his powers of resistance; and so he learned to school
himself to the idea, that good comes ever through the temptation to evil
to all those who have the courage to extract it.
We have followed him up and down all the streams of our great central
western wilds, and indicated the store of geographic knowledge which he
had acquired by hard experience before they were known so far to any one
besides; and then for eight years more we have seen that this knowledge
was digested and reviewed in the social circle with other mountain
trappers, and beside the lonely mountain river, and 'neath the wild,
steep cliff; or on the grassy bottom, or the barren plain, and in the
less sterile places where the sage hen found a covert, and up among the
oak openings, and in the gigantic parks, where, as a hunter, he
revisited old haunts.
In all his toilsome and adventurous enterprises, while he sought to
benefit himself, he never turned away, nor failed to lend a helping hand
to a needy, suffering brother, or to encourage one who needed such a
lesson, to turn his youth to the most account; and if affectionate
regard is a recompense for such service, he had his compensation, as he
passed along the path he had marked out for himself, not from the white
man alone, but from the Indian who everywhere came to look upon Kit
Carson as his friend.
The Camanches, the Arapahoes, the Utahs, and the Cheyennes, besides
several smaller tribes, knew him personally in the hunt, and he had sat
by their camp fires, and dandled their children, and sung to them the
ditty,
"What makes the lamb love Mary so?
The eager children cry;
Why Mary loves the lamb, you know,
And that's the reason why."
The Indians feared, and reverenced, and loved him, and that this latter
may be proved to the reader we relate the following story of private
history, nor will it be esteemed out of taste:
The powerful Sioux had come from the north beyond their usual hunting
grounds, and had had skirmishes with several Indian bands, some of whom
sent for Carson to the Upper Arkansas to come over and help them drive
back the Sioux. As the larder at the fort was full, he consented to go
with the war-painted Camanche messengers to a camp of their tribe,
united with a band of Arapahoes. They told him the Sioux had a thousand
warriors and many rifles, and they feared them, but knew that the
"Monarch of the Prairies" could overcome them. Carson sat in council
with the chiefs, and finally, instead of encouraging them to fight,
persuaded them to peace, and acted so successfully the part of mediator,
that the Sioux consented to retire from the hunting grounds of the
Camanches when the season was over, and they separated without a
collision.
It was while engaged as hunter for Messrs. Bent and St. Vrain, Carson
took to himself an Indian wife, by whom he had a daughter still living,
and who forms the connecting link between his past hardships, and his
present greatness; for that he is emphatically a great man, the whole
civilized world has acknowledged.
The mother died soon after her birth, and Carson feeling that his rude
cabin was scarcely the place to rear his child, determined, when of a
suitable age, to take her to St. Louis, and secure for her those
advantages of education which circumstances had denied to him; and
accordingly, when his engagement at the fort had expired, he determined
to go to St. Louis for that purpose, embracing on the route the
opportunity of visiting the home of his boyhood, which he had not seen
for sixteen years.
Of course he found everything changed. Many of those whom he had known
as men and heads of families, were now grown old, while more had died
off; but by those to whom he was made known, he was recognized with a
heartiness of welcome which brought tears to his eyes, though his heart
was saddened at the changes which time had wrought. His fame had
preceded him, and his welcome was therefore doubly cordial, for he had
more than verified the promise of his youth.
Thence he proceeded to St. Louis, with the intention of placing his
daughter at school, but here, to his great amazement, he found himself a
lion; for the advent of such a man in such a city, which had so often
rung with his deeds of daring and suffering, could not be permitted to
remain among its citizens unknown or unrecognized. He was courted and
fêted and though gratified at the attentions showered upon him, found
himself so thoroughly out of his element, that he longed to return to
more pleasant and more familiar scenes, his old hunting grounds.
Having accomplished the object of his visit to St. Louis, in placing his
daughter under proper guardianship, he left the city, carrying with him
pleasing, because merited remembrances of the attentions paid to him,
and leaving behind him impressions of the most favorable character.
Soon after he reached St. Louis, he had the good fortune to fall in with
Lieut. Fremont, who was there organizing a party for the exploration of
the far western country, as yet unknown, and who was anxiously awaiting
the arrival of Captain Drips, a well known trader and trapper, who had
been highly recommended to him as a guide.
Kit Carson's name and fame were familiar as household words to Fremont,
and he gladly availed himself of his proffered services in lieu of those
of Capt. Drips. It did not take long for two such men as John C. Fremont
and Kit Carson to become thoroughly acquainted with each other, and the
accidental meeting at St. Louis resulted in the cementing of a
friendship which has never been impaired,--won as it was on the one part
by fidelity, truthfulness, integrity, and courage, united to vast
experience and consummate skill in the prosecution of the duty he had
assumed--on the other by every quality which commands honour, regard,
esteem, and high personal devotion.
And now Carson's life has commenced in earnest, for heretofore he has
only been fitting himself to live. His name is embodied in the archives
of our country's history, and no one has been more ready to accord to
him the credit he so well earned, as has he who had the good fortune to
secure, at the same time, the services of the most experienced guide of
his day, and the devotion of a friend.
Lieut. Fremont had instructions to explore and report upon the country
lying between the frontiers of Missouri and the South Pass in the Rocky
Mountains, on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte Rivers, and with
his party, leaving St. Louis on the 22nd of May, 1842, by steamboat for
Chouteau's Landing on the Missouri, near the mouth of the Kansas, at a
point twelve miles beyond at Chouteau's trading post, he encamped there
to complete his arrangements for this important expedition.