Fremont was exploring from the Mississippi Valley a route for emigrants to Oregon, and in that journey climbed the Rocky Mountains to plant Old Glory on one of the highest peaks. He was a very fine explorer, and not long afterward conquered the Mexican state of California, completing the outline of the modern United States. But Fremont’s guide will be remembered long after Fremont is forgotten, for he was the greatest of American frontiersmen, the ideal of modern chivalry, Kit Carson. Of course he must have a chapter to himself.
XIII
A.D. 1843 KIT CARSON
Once Colonel Inman, an old frontiersman, bought a newspaper which had a full page picture of Kit Carson. The hero stood in a forest, a gigantic figure in a buckskin suit, heavily armed, embracing a rescued heroine, while at his feet sprawled six slain Indian braves, his latest victims.
“What do you think of this?” said the colonel handing the picture to a delicate little man, who wiped his spectacles, studied the work of art, and replied in a gentle drawl, “That may be true, but I hain’t got no recollection of it.” And so Kit Carson handed the picture back.
He stood five feet six, and looked frail, but his countrymen, and all the boys of all the world think of this mighty frontiersman as a giant.
At seventeen he was a remarkably green and innocent boy for his years, his home a log cabin on the Missouri frontier. Past the door ran the trail to the west where trappers went by in buckskin, traders among the Indians, and soldiers for the savage wars of the plains.
One day came Colonel S. Vrain, agent of a big fur-trading company, with his long train of wagons hitting the Santa Fe trail. Kit got a job with that train, to herd spare stock, hunt bison, mount guard and fight Indians. They were three weeks out in camp when half a dozen Pawnee Indians charged, yelling and waving robes to stampede the herd, but a brisk fusillade from the white men sent them scampering back over the sky-line. Next day, after a sixteen mile march the outfit corraled their wagons for defense at the foot of Pawnee Rock beside the Arkansas River. “I had not slept any of the night before,” says Kit, “for I stayed awake watching to get a shot at the Pawnees that tried to stampede our animals, expecting they would return; and I hadn’t caught a wink all day, as I was out buffalo hunting, so I was awfully tired and sleepy when we arrived at Pawnee Rock that evening, and when I was posted at my place at night, I must have gone to sleep leaning against the rocks; at any rate, I was wide enough awake when the cry of Indians was given by one of the guard. I had picketed my mule about twenty paces from where I stood, and I presume he had been lying down; all I remember is, that the first thing I saw after the alarm was something rising up out of the grass, which I thought was an Indian. I pulled the trigger; it was a center shot, and I don’t believe the mule ever kicked after he was hit!”
At daylight the Pawnees attacked in earnest and the fight lasted nearly three days, the mule teams being shut in the corral without food or water. At midnight of the second day they hitched up, fighting their way for thirteen miles, then got into bad trouble fording Pawnee Fork while the Indians poured lead and arrows into the teams until the colonel and Kit Carson led a terrific charge which dispersed the enemy. That fight cost the train four killed and seven wounded.
It was during this first trip that Carson saved the life of a wounded teamster by cutting off his arm. With a razor he cut the flesh, with a saw got through the bone, and with a white-hot king-bolt seared the wound, stopping the flow of blood.
In 1835 Carson was hunter for Bent’s Fort, keeping the garrison of forty men supplied with buffalo meat. Once he was out hunting with six others and they made their camp tired out. “I saw,” says Kit, “two big wolves sneaking about, one of them quite close to us. Gordon, one of my men, wanted to fire his rifle at it, but I would not let him for fear he would hit a dog. I admit that I had a sort of idea that these wolves might be Indians; but when I noticed one of them turn short around and heard the clashing of his teeth as he rushed at one of the dogs, I felt easy then, and was certain that they were wolves sure enough. But the red devil fooled me after all, for he had two dried buffalo bones in his hands under the wolf-skin and he rattled them together every time he turned to make a dash at the dogs! Well, by and by we all dozed off, and it wasn’t long before I was suddenly aroused by a noise and a big blaze. I rushed out the first thing for our mules and held them. If the savages had been at all smart, they could have killed us in a trice, but they ran as soon as they fired at us. They killed one of my men, putting five shots in his body and eight in his buffalo robe. The Indians were a band of snakes, and found us by sheer accident. They endeavored to ambush us the next morning, but we got wind of their little game and killed three of them, including the chief.”