These peons were often badly treated by their Mexican masters, and after they had been for a short time with the Indians, they liked the new life so well that they would not return to their old masters, even if they had the opportunity. Many of these men led the warriors in raids into Mexico. They kept in communication with peons in the Mexican settlements, and from them learned just which places were unguarded, where the best herds and most plunder were to be secured, and where the Mexican troops were stationed. The peon then led his war-party to the locality selected, and they ran off the herds, burned ranches, and carried off plunder and peon women and men. Some of the peons captured became chiefs in the tribes that had taken them. In the old days, Colonel Bent sometimes purchased these Mexican peons from the Kiowas. In 1908 one of these peons was still living at the Kiowa Agency, eighty-two years old.
Carson was employed by the Bents as hunter for many years. Sometimes he remained at the fort, supplying the table with meat, at other times he went with the wagon-train to Missouri, acting as hunter for the outfit. The following advertisement from the Missouri Intelligencer marked Carson’s first appearance on the page of history:
“Notice: To whom it may concern: That Christopher Carson, a boy about sixteen years, small of his age, but thickset, light hair, ran away from the subscriber, living in Franklin, Howard Co., Mo., to whom he had been bound to learn the saddler’s trade, on or about the first day of September last. He is supposed to have made his way toward the upper part of the State. All persons are notified not to harbor, support or subsist said boy under penalty of the law. One cent reward will be given to any person who will bring back said boy.
“David Workman.
“Franklin, Oct. 6, 1826.”
This runaway boy joined the Santa Fé caravan of Charles Bent, and from that time on for a number of years was employed by Bent and St. Vrain. From 1834 to 1842, he was constantly at the fort. He married a daughter of Charles Beaubien, of Taos, who, with his son, Narcisse Beaubien, was killed at the time of the Pueblo massacre in January, 1847.
During the Civil War, Carson received a commission in the militia of New Mexico or Colorado, and rose to the rank of colonel and brevet brigadier-general.
V
LIFE AT BENT’S FORT
Bent’s Old Fort was a stopping-place for all travellers on the Santa Fé trail, and visitors often remained there for weeks at a time, for Colonel Bent kept open house. On holidays, such as Christmas and the Fourth of July, if any number of people were there, they often had balls or dances, in which trappers, travellers, Indians, Indian women, and Mexican women all took part. Employed about the post there was always a Frenchman or two who could play the violin and guitar. On one occasion Frank P. Blair,[7] then twenty-three years old, afterward a general in the Union army, and at one time a vice-presidential candidate, played the banjo all night at a ball at the fort.
[7] Appointed Attorney-general of New Mexico by General Kearny in 1846. Took an active part on the side of the Union in Missouri in 1860–1.
Just before each Fourth of July, a party was always sent up into the mountains on the Purgatoire River to gather wild mint for mint-juleps to be drunk in honor of the day. For the brewing of these, ice from the ice-house was used. In those days this drink was called “hail storm.”