This, then, was the end of the first exploration of the Rockies accompanied by thermometer and barometer rather than by trap sack and “possible bag.” It was of value. If we were asked what was the most valuable result of this second expedition of Frémont, we should be obliged to answer that it was his mention of the great value of the Western grasses. Frémont was an observer, a chronicler, a writer. It was he that first began to bring back accurate story of the resources of the West.
The mineral wealth of the West, over which the trappers had tramped for a quarter of a century, was as yet unsought and unsuspected by Frémont or any one else. It was to be first the fur trade, then the mining trade, then the cattle trade in the trans-Mississippi West; and after that the agricultural life, followed by the days of swift transportation, of change, of transition and expansion and gourd-like growth in all visible ways.
We are now well forward in the third era of Kit Carson’s career. If at first he was a trapper and hunter in order that he might become fit guide, during the third stage of his life he was to be accepted as the authorized guide of the most important preliminaries for the west-bound movement of the trans-Mississippi population. After the close of the second Frémont expedition, and during the year 1845, Carson tried to be a ranchman or farmer, pitching his tents for the time about fifty miles east of Taos. It was of no avail. Frémont called for him once more. The farm was sold for half its value, and once more Carson set his face toward the West, in company with a Frémont now older, better seasoned and of better judgment. A more direct trail across the Great Basin and into California was desired than that taken either in going or returning on the second expedition.
Carson was the one to go ahead. He traveled alone for sixty miles west of the Great Salt Lake, directly into the desert, and the rest of the party came up to his signal smoke. Thence they pushed on to the Carson River, searching still for a new pass over the Sierras into the valley of the San Joaquin. At last they won across, as did the earlier trappers, and again they reached Sutter’s Fort in due time. A branch of the main party, that headed by Talbott, did not appear at the appointed meeting place. It was Carson, of course, Carson the traveler, who was despatched down the San Joaquin valley to discover the truth of a rumor that Talbott and his party had appeared in that locality. Needless to say the wanderers were found.
Now there broke out the Mexican imbroglio, in which the part of Frémont is well known. For a time Frémont’s party moved north, along the Sacramento, thence toward the Columbia River. They did not know that war had been declared between the United States and Mexico. Lieutenant Gillespie, hot on their trail, brought the message that hostilities had broken out. In Oregon, in the Tlamath country, came the night attack in which Basil Lajeunesse and three others of the party were killed. Carson saw his companion, a brave Delaware Indian, stand up and receive a half-dozen arrows from unseen foes. He joined the pursuit in the dark; and later, on the backward trail to California with Gillespie, helped execute the stern mountain vengeance on the Tlamaths, leading the mountaineers in all their desperate little fights.
The exploring party had now become military, and so the flag, led and backed by American mountaineers, went up above a Western empire. As to the services of this far-traveling mountain man to his leader and to his country, we can scarcely overestimate them. Some idea of the confidence in which he was now held may be gathered from the fact that, after the Frémont operations in California, Carson was sent with despatches to Washington, in order that the government might know what was happening on the far-away Pacific slope.
He started on September fifteenth, 1846, and it was asked of him that he make the entire trip to Washington inside of sixty days; this at a time when there was not a foot of railway west of the Missouri, and when all the country from the Pacific to the Missouri was more or less occupied with hostile savages. None the less Carson started, the first overland rider to bear despatches on a continuous journey of this nature.
By October sixth he was far toward the eastward, across the Rockies, when he met General Kearney’s column. Kearney ordered Carson to turn back and guide him westward to California. Without a murmur the little blue-eyed man remarked: “As the General pleases.” He did not stop to visit his own family at Taos, but went back once more to lead the west-bound flag. By December third the slow column had reached California, and here it met more warlike experiences than it liked or had believed possible. The California Mexicans that fell upon Kearney’s column were fighters. They killed fifty of the Americans, surrounded the remainder, and bade fair to exterminate the entire expedition.
Witness again the service of the scout and guide. Carson and Lieutenant Beale of the Navy were sent out as special messengers to San Diego. In some way they got through the beleaguering lines, and after a perilous journey arrived at San Diego and secured the desired help. This sort of thing was nothing new to Carson. It was so severe for Beale that he went deranged, and it took him two years to recover from his journey, brave man and bold as he was. The Army and Navy had not the seasoning of the American mountain men, the hardiest breed ever grown on the face of the globe.
At Los Angeles Carson finally rejoined Frémont, in time for that tempest in a teapot wherein Frémont and Kearney fell at swords’ points. These things are of no moment, yet it is significant that in March, 1847, Carson was sent once more as despatch bearer to Washington. He went light and speedy as before, met the Indians on the Gila, fought them and won through. This time he reached Washington, after his long and steady ride across New Mexico and down the Arkansas River to the Missouri, arriving in the month of June, after having made four thousand miles in three months. We make it in about three days to-day.