Now, at this time Texas was striving to be free from all claims of Mexico, and armed Texans had been invading New Mexico and threatening Santa Fé and Santa Fé caravans. This had caused the Mexican government to forbid intercourse back and forth across the border between New Mexico and foreigners; and the chance that Lieutenant Frémont might secure mules from Taos was slim. At Bent’s Kit Carson himself turned off, up the Arkansas, to meet the lieutenant and to warn him of conditions.
He met him at the little settlement of the Pueblo, about seventy miles from the post. The town is to-day Pueblo, Colorado. Lieutenant Frémont immediately sent Kit back to Bent’s, with a request that the fort supply some mules, if possible.
Meanwhile the Carson men, under Ike Chamberlain, rode on to St. Vrain.
Fort St. Vrain was situated opposite where the St. Vrain creek empties into the South Platte River, not far from the present Colorado town of Greeley. It was built of adobe clay bricks, and was commanded by Mr. Marcelin St. Vrain, younger brother of the Ceran St. Vrain who formed one in the partnership Bent, St. Vrain & Co., of the Santa Fé Trail. A slim, boyish man was Marcelin St. Vrain, with black hair, black eyes and black whiskers. His wife was a Sioux girl.
The fort was out on the plains, a short distance from the foothills. Here awaiting the return of the lieutenant from his side trip up the South Platte and down to the Arkansas was Thomas Fitzpatrick with a detachment of twenty-five of the Frémont men.
A ruddy-faced, rather heavy-set man was Thomas Fitzpatrick, with thick hair turned snow white and with his left hand crippled. A severe adventure, in the summer of 1832, with Blackfeet Indians who had chased him and forced him to hide in a cave for three days, had whitened his hair; and the bursting of his rifle had crippled his hand. The Indians called him not only “White Head” but also “Bad Hand” and “Broken Hand.”
He and Ike and the other Taos trappers greeted each other tumultuously, for all knew and respected Thomas Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick had brought the wagons and the heavy baggage. He was waiting and resting the animals. Lieutenant Frémont had taken one light wagon, and a cannon—a brass twelve-pounder; for this second expedition was armed with a field-piece, to be used if the Indians grew too bold.
About this cannon centred much of the post gossip. Some of the rumors said that the cannon was to be used to conquer Oregon from the British; some said that it was to be used to seize California from the Mexicans; nobody knew exactly what the plans were, save that the trail was to lead across the mountains, and west by the Snake to the Columbia, surveying the overland route until it connected with the survey north and south along the Pacific Coast in California and Oregon, made by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the Navy in 1841.
To operate the cannon piece the lieutenant had engaged at St. Louis a regular cannoneer, by name of Zindel—Louis Zindel, who had been a non-commissioned officer of artillery in the Prussian army. Besides, in the company was a young negro man, named Jacob Dodson, not a slave, but free born, although in service to the family of Senator Benton, the lieutenant’s father-in-law; two greenhorns, Mr. Theodore Talbot, government draughtsman of Washington, and Mr. Frederick Dwight, of Springfield, Massachusetts, who was making a tour to the Sandwich Islands by way of Vancouver; Mr. William Gilpin, also for Vancouver; and two Delaware Indians, old man and son. Then, here at St. Vrain, in the Fitzpatrick company, were two comrades of the 1842 expedition: Alexis Ayot and Baptiste Bernier, whom Oliver was glad to see. Five other members of the first expedition—Mr. Preuss, the bristly-headed German scientist, Basil Lajeunesse the fearless voyageur, Louis Ménard (a cousin of Maxwell), François Badeau and Raphael Proue—were south with the lieutenant.