"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.