Life of Kit Carson, the Great Western Hunter and Guide

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.

CHAPTER XVI

Fremont was delayed several days at Chouteau's Landing, by the state of the weather, which prevented the necessary astronomical observations, but finally all his arrangements being completed, and the weather permitting, the party started in the highest spirit, and filled with anticipations of an exciting and adventurous journey.

He had collected in the neighborhood of St. Louis twenty-one men, principally Creole and Canadian voyageurs, who had become familiar with prairie life in the service of the fur companies in the Indian country. Mr. Charles Preuss, a native of Germany, was his assistant in the topographical part of the survey. L. Maxwell, of Kaskaskia, had been engaged as hunter, and Christopher Carson as guide.

Mr. Cyprian Chouteau, to whose kindness, during their stay at his house, all were much indebted, accompanied them several miles on their way, until they met an Indian, whom he had engaged to conduct them on the first thirty or forty miles, where he was to consign them to the ocean prairie, which stretched, without interruption, almost to the base of the Rocky Mountains.

During the journey, it was the customary practice to encamp an hour or two before sunset, when the carts were disposed so as to form a sort of barricade around a circle some eighty yards in diameter. The tents were pitched, and the horses hobbled and turned loose to graze; and but a few minutes elapsed before the cooks of the messes, of which there were four, were busily engaged in preparing the evening meal. At nightfall, the horses, mules, and oxen, were driven in and picketed – that is, secured by a halter, of which one end was tied to a small steel-shod picket, and driven into the ground; the halter being twenty or thirty feet long, which enabled them to obtain a little food during the night. When they had reached a part of the country where such a precaution became necessary, the carts being regularly arranged for defending the camp, guard was mounted at eight o'clock, consisting of three men, who were relieved every two hours; the morning watch being horse guard for the day. At daybreak, the camp was roused, the animals turned loose to graze, and breakfast generally over between six and seven o'clock, when they resumed their march, making regularly a halt at noon for one or two hours. Such was usually the order of the day, except when accident of country forced a variation, which, however, happened but rarely.

They reached the ford of the Kansas late in the afternoon of the 14th, where the river was two hundred and thirty yards wide, and commenced immediately preparations for crossing. The river had been swollen by the late rains, and was sweeping by with an angry current, yellow and turbid as the Missouri. Up to this point, the road traveled was a remarkably fine one, well beaten and level – the usual road of a prairie country. By this route, the ford was one hundred miles from the mouth of the Kansas river, on reaching which several mounted men led the way into the stream, to swim across. The animals were driven in after them, and in a few minutes all had reached the opposite bank in safety, with the exception of the oxen, which swam some distance down the river, and, returning to the right bank, were not got over until the next morning. In the meantime, the carts had been unloaded and dismantled, and an India-rubber boat, which had been brought for the survey of the Platte River, placed in the water. The boat was twenty feet long and five broad, and on it were placed the body and wheels of a cart, with the load belonging to it, and three men with paddles.

The velocity of the current, and the inconvenient freight, rendering it difficult to be managed, Basil Lajeunesse, one of the best swimmers, took in his teeth a line attached to the boat, and swam ahead in order to reach a footing as soon as possible, and assist in drawing her over. In this manner, six passages had been successfully made, and as many carts with their contents, and a greater portion of the party, deposited on the left bank; but night was drawing near, and in his great anxiety to complete the crossing before darkness set in, he put on the boat, contrary to the advice of Carson, the last two carts with their loads. The consequence was, the boat was capsized, and everything on board was in a moment floating down stream. They were all, however, eventually recovered, but not without great trouble. Carson and Maxwell, who had been in the water nearly all the succeeding day, searching for the lost articles, were taken so ill in consequence of the prolonged exposure, the party was obliged to lie by another day to enable them to recruit, for to proceed without them would have been folly.

The dense timber which surrounded their camp, interfering with astronomical observations, and the wet and damaged stores requiring exposure to the sun, the tents were struck early the next day but one after this disaster and the party moved up the river about seven miles, where they camped upon a handsome open prairie, some twenty feet above the water, and where the fine grass afforded a luxurious repast to the weary animals. They lay in camp here two days, during which time the men were kept busy in drying the provisions, painting the cart covers, and otherwise completing their equipage, until the afternoon when powder was distributed to them, and they spent some hours in firing at a mark, as they were now fairly in the Indian country, and it began to be time to prepare for the chances of the wilderness.

CHAPTER XVII

Leaving the river bottom, the road which was the Oregon trail, past Fort Laramie, – ran along the uplands, over a rolling country, upon which were scattered many boulders of red sand-stone, some of them of several tons weight; and many beautiful plants and flowers enlivened the prairie. The barometer indicated fourteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, and the elevation appeared to have its influence on vegetation.

The country became more broken, rising still and covered everywhere with fragments of silicious limestone, strewn over the earth like pebbles on the sea shore; especially upon the summits and exposed situations; and in these places but few plants grew, while in the creek bottoms, and ravines, a great variety of plants flourished.

For several days they continued their journey, annoyed only by the lack of water, and at length reached the range of the Pawnees who infested that part of the country, stealing horses from companies on their way to the mountains, and when in sufficient force, openly attacking them, and subjecting them to various insults; and it was while encamped here, that a regular guard was mounted for the first time, but the night passed over without annoyance.

Speaking of the constant watchfulness required when in the neighborhood of hostile or thieving Indians, Fremont says,

"The next morning we had a specimen of the false alarms to which all parties in these wild regions are subject. Proceeding up the valley, objects were seen on the opposite hills, which disappeared before a glass could be brought to bear upon them. A man, who was a short distance in the rear, came spurring up in great haste, shouting, Indians! Indians! He had been near enough to see and count them, according to his report, and had made out twenty-seven. I immediately halted; arms were examined and put in order; the usual preparations made; and Kit Carson, springing upon one of the hunting horses, crossed the river, and galloped off into the opposite prairies, to obtain some certain intelligence of their movements.

"Mounted on a fine horse, without a saddle, and scouring bareheaded over the prairies, Kit was one of the finest pictures of a horseman I have ever seen. A short time enabled him to discover that the Indian war party of twenty-seven consisted of six elk, who had been gazing curiously at our caravan as it passed by, and were now scampering off at full speed. This was our first alarm, and its excitement broke agreeably on the monotony of the day. At our noon halt, the men were exercised at a target; and in the evening we pitched our tents at a Pawnee encampment of last July. They had apparently killed buffalo here, as many bones were lying about, and the frames where the hides had been stretched were yet standing."

Leaving the fork of the "Blue," upon a high dividing ridge, in about twenty-one miles they reached the coast of the Platte, or Nebraska River as it is called, a line of low hills, or the break from the prairie to the river bottom. Cacti here were numerous, and the amorpha, remarkable for its large and luxuriant purple clusters, was in full bloom. From the foot of the coast, two miles across the level bottom, brought them to the shore of the river twenty miles below the head of Grand Island, and more than three hundred from the mouth of the Kansas. The elevation of the Platte valley here was about two thousand feet above the level of the sea.

The next day they met a party of fourteen, who had started sixty days before from Fort Laramie, in barges laden with furs for the American Fur Company, hoping to come down the Platte without difficulty, as they left upon the annual flood, and their boats drew only nine inches of water. But at Scott's bluffs, one hundred and thirty miles below Fort Laramie, the river became so broad and shallow, and the current so changeful among the sandbars, that they abandoned their boats and cached their cargoes, and were making the rest of their journey to St. Louis on foot, each with a pack as large as he could carry.

In the interchange of news, and the renewal of old acquaintanceships, they found wherewithal to fill a busy hour. Among them Fremont had found an old companion on the northern prairie, a hardened and hardly served veteran of the mountains, who had been as much hacked and scarred as an old moustache of Napoleon's "old guard." He flourished in the sobriquet of La Tulipe, and his real name no one knew. Finding that he was going to the States only because his company was bound in that direction, and that he was rather more willing to return with Fremont, he was taken again into his service.

A few days more of travel, whose monotony was not relieved by any incident worth narrating, brought the party in sight of the buffalo, swarming in immense numbers over the plains, where they had left scarcely a blade of grass standing. "Mr. Preuss," says Fremont, "who was sketching at a little distance in the rear, had at first noted them as large groves of timber. In the sight of such a mass of life, the traveler feels a strange emotion of grandeur. We had heard from a distance a dull and confused murmuring, and when we came in view of their dark masses, there was not one among us who did not feel his heart beat quicker. It was the early part of the day, when the herds are feeding; and everywhere they were in motion. Here and there a huge old bull was rolling in the grass, and clouds of dust rose in the air from various parts of the bands, each the scene of some obstinate fight. Indians and buffalo make the poetry and life of the prairie, and our camp was full of their exhilaration. In place of the quiet monotony of the march, relieved only by the cracking of the whip, and an 'avance donc! enfant de garce!' shouts and songs resounded from every part of the line, and our evening camp was always the commencement of a feast, which terminated only with our departure on the following morning. At any time in the night might be seen pieces of the most delicate meat, roasting en appolas, on sticks around the fire, and the guard were never without company. With pleasant weather, and no enemy to fear, an abundance of the most excellent meat, and no scarcity of bread or tobacco, they were enjoying the oasis of a voyageur's life."

Three cows were killed on that day, but a serious accident befell Carson in the course of the chase, which had nearly cost him his life. Kit had shot one, and was continuing the chase, in the midst of another herd, when his horse fell headlong, but sprang up and joined the flying band. Though considerably hurt, he had the good fortune to break no bones; and Maxwell, who was mounted on a fleet hunter, captured the runaway after a hard chase. He was on the point of shooting him, to avoid the loss of his bridle, (a handsomely mounted Spanish one,) when he found that his horse was able to come up with him.

This mishap, however, did not deter Kit from his favorite pursuit of buffalo hunting, for on the following day, notwithstanding his really serious accident, we find him ready and eager for another chase. Fremont in his narrative thus relates the occurrence: —

"As we were riding quietly along the bank, a grand herd of buffalo, some seven or eight hundred in number, came crowding up from the river, where they had been to drink, and commenced crossing the plain slowly, eating as they went. The wind was favorable; the coolness of the morning invited to exercise; the ground was apparently good, and the distance across the prairie (two or three miles) gave us a fine opportunity to charge them before they could get among the river hills. It was too fine a prospect for a chase to be lost; and halting for a few moments, the hunters were brought up and saddled, and Kit Carson, Maxwell, and I, started together. They were now somewhat less than half a mile distant, and we rode easily along until within about three hundred yards, when a sudden agitation, a wavering in the band, and a galloping to and fro of some which were scattered along the skirts, gave us the intimation that we were discovered. We started together at a hard gallop, riding steadily abreast of each other, and here the interest of the chase became so engrossingly intense, that we were sensible to nothing else. We were now closing upon them rapidly, and the front of the mass was already in rapid motion for the hills, and in a few seconds the movement had communicated itself to the whole herd.

"A crowd of bulls, as usual, brought up the rear, and every now and then some of them faced about, and then dashed on after the band a short distance, and turned and looked again, as if more than half inclined to stand and fight. In a few moments, however, during which we had been quickening our pace, the rout was universal, and we were going over the ground like a hurricane. When at about thirty yards, we gave the usual shout (the hunter's pas de charge), and broke into the herd. We entered on the side, the mass giving way in every direction in their heedless course. Many of the bulls, less active and less fleet than the cows, paying no attention to the ground, and occupied solely with the hunter, were precipitated to the earth with great force, rolling over and over with the violence of the shock, and hardly distinguishable in the dust. We separated on entering, each singling out his game.

"My horse was a trained hunter, famous in the west under the name of Proveau, and with his eyes flashing, and the foam flying from his mouth, sprang on after the cow like a tiger. In a few moments he brought me alongside of her, and rising in the stirrups, I fired at the distance of a yard, the ball entering at the termination of the long hair, and passing near the heart. She fell headlong at the report of the gun, and, checking my horse, I looked around for my companions.

"At a little distance, Kit was on the ground, engaged in tying his horse to the horns of a cow which he was preparing to cut up. Among the scattered bands, at some distance below, I caught a glimpse of Maxwell; and while I was looking, a light wreath of white smoke curled away from his gun, from which I was too far to hear the report. Nearer, and between me and the hills, towards which they were directing their course, was the body of the herd, and giving my horse the rein, we dashed after them. A thick cloud of dust hung upon their rear, which filled my mouth and eyes, and nearly smothered me. In the midst of this I could see nothing, and the buffalo were not distinguishable until within thirty feet.

"They crowded together more densely still as I came upon them, and rushed along in such a compact body, that I could not obtain an entrance – the horse almost leaping upon them. In a few moments the mass divided to the right and left, the horns clattering with a noise heard above everything else, and my horse darted into the opening.

"Five or six bulls charged on us as we dashed along the line, but were left far behind; and singling out a cow, I gave her my fire, but struck too high. She gave a tremendous leap, and scoured on swifter than before. I reined up my horse, and the band swept on like a torrent, and left the place quiet and clear. Our chase had led us into dangerous ground. A prairie-dog village, so thickly settled that there were three or four holes in every twenty yards square, occupied the whole bottom for nearly two miles in length. Looking around, I saw only one of the hunters, nearly out of sight, and the long dark line of our caravan crawling along, three or four miles distant."

CHAPTER XVIII

The encampment of the party on the 4th of July, was a few miles from where the road crosses over to the north fork of the Platte, where a grand dinner was prepared, toasts drank, and salutes fired; and it was here Fremont decided to divide his party, wishing, himself, to explore the south fork of the Platte, as far as St. Vrain's Fort; and taking with him Maxwell and two others of his men, and the Cheyenne Indians, whose village was upon this river, he left the rest of the party to proceed under the direction of Clement Lambert up the north fork to Fort Laramie, where they were to wait his arrival, as he intended to cross the country between the two forts.

Buffalo were still plenty upon Fremont's route, and the Indians with him made an unsuccessful attempt to lasso the leader of a drove of wild horses, which they passed. They met a band of two or three hundred Arapahoe Indians, and were only saved from an attack by Maxwell, who secured a timely recognition from the old chief who led the party, which proved to be from a village among whom he had resided as a trader, and whose camp the chief pointed out to them some six miles distant. They had come out to surround a band of buffalo which was feeding across the river, and were making a large circuit to avoid giving them the wind, when they discovered Fremont's party, whom they had mistaken for Pawnees. In a few minutes the women came galloping up, astride of their horses, and naked from their knees down, and the hips up. They followed the men to assist in cutting up and carrying off the meat.