Christopher Carson, Familiarly Known as Kit Carson Part 6

The party was large, the beavers were scarce, and after the lapse of a month Mr. Carson decided that the prospect of a rich remuneration in the distribution of their furs, was not encouraging. He therefore arranged an expedition on his own account. His popularity as a man and his reputation as a trapper were such that every man in the party was ready to join him.

He selected three of the best men, and crossing the main ridge of the Rocky mountains, a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles, reached the Laramie river, a stream which flowed into the north fork of the Platte.

The warm airs of spring were now beginning to breathe through these valleys. On the Laramie and its tributaries, Carson and his companions continued trapping through the whole summer. They were successful beyond their highest expectations. As they were to carry their furs for sale to Taos, which was on the west side of the mountains, they set out, laden with their goods, to cross the wide and rocky range. It was slow work threading these defiles, and it required a journey of several days.

One afternoon having travelled for hours through a very dreary and barren ravine, in which they had found no game, they halted two hours before sunset. Carson, while his two companions were arranging the camp, set off with his rifle in pursuit of supper. He had wandered about a mile from the camp, when he came upon the fresh tracks of some elk. Following their trail for a little distance, he soon discovered a small herd of the beautiful animals grazing upon a hill-side, just on the edge of a grove.

Moving with great care, circuitously he entered upon the covert of the trees, crept up within rifle range, selected the largest and fattest of the herd, and at the report of the rifle, the animal stood for a moment shivering as if struck by paralysis, and then dropped dead.

Carson was more than usually elated by his success. The party were all hungry. The region was extremely wild and barren, and there was great danger that they would have to go supperless to bed. Scarcely had the echo of his rifle shot died away, when Carson heard a terrific roar, directly behind him. Instantly turning his head, he saw two enormous grizzly bears, coming down upon him at full speed, and at the distance of but a few rods.

The grizzly bear is a larger animal and far more ferocious, than the black bear. A bullet seems to p.r.i.c.k rather than to maim him, and he will attack the hunter with the most desperate and persevering fierceness.

Carson was helpless. He had discharged his rifle. The brutes were close upon him, and there were two of them. They could outrun him. His fate seemed sealed.

For once, Kit Carson was frightened; but not so much so as in the slightest degree to lose his self-possession. With a lightning glance, his eye swept the grove, in search of a tree into whose branches he might climb. He saw one at a little distance, and rushed towards it, pursued by both of the monsters growling and gnashing their teeth. With wonderful agility, he sprang and caught a lower branch, and drew himself up into the tree, just in time to escape the blow which one of the bears struck at him with his terrific claws. But he had by no means obtained a place of safety. He had been compelled to drop his rifle in his flight. The grizzly bear can climb a tree, far more easily than can a man. He was too far distant from the camp to hope for aid from that quarter. Again it seemed that a dreadful death was inevitable.

The bears hesitated for a moment, growling and showing their claws and their white teeth. Quick as thought Carson cut and trimmed from the tree a stout cudgel, which would neither break nor bend. Soon, one of the bears commenced climbing the tree. The nose of the bear is very tender, and is the only point vulnerable to blows.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Cudgel in hand, Carson took his stand upon one of the branches, and as soon as the bear's head came within reach, a.s.sailed him with such a storm of blows, that he dropped howling to the ground. The other then made the attempt to climb the tree, and encountered the same fate. The blows which the sinewy arm of Carson had inflicted, evidently gave the animals terrible pain. They filled the forest with their howlings, and endeavored to bury their snouts beneath the sod. For some time they lingered around the tree, looking wistfully at their prey, as if loth to leave it. But they did not venture to incur a repet.i.tion of the chastis.e.m.e.nt they had already received. At length, with almost a ludicrous aspect of disconsolateness, they slowly retired into the forest.

Carson waited until a.s.sured that they had entirely withdrawn. He then descended the tree, reloaded his rifle, and repairing to the spot where he had shot the elk, found that it had already been devoured by wolves. This adventure had occupied many dreadful hours. It was not until the morning dawned, that Carson found his way back to his anxious companions in the camp. He often said that never in his life, had he been exposed to greater peril, than on this occasion.

CHAPTER VI.

The Rendezvous.

Fair in the Wilderness.--The Encampment.--Dispersion of the Trappers.--Hostility of the Blackfeet.--Camp on the Big Snake River.--The Blackfeet Marauders.--The Pursuit.--The Calumet.--The Battle.--Kit Carson wounded.--The Rencontre with Shunan.--The Defeat and Humiliation of Shunan.--Remarkable Modesty of Carson.--Testimony to Mr. Carson's Virtues.

In the morning the party fortunately found, in one of their traps, a beaver, upon whose not very palatable flesh they breakfasted. The tail of a beaver when well cooked, is esteemed quite a delicacy. But one tail would not furnish sufficient food for three men. Fifteen days pa.s.sed away before Kit Carson's little band was reunited with the larger company of Messrs. Fitzpatrick and Bridger. A rendezvous had been appointed at a spot on Green river, which afforded great attractions for an encampment.

In some unexplained way intelligence had been conveyed, through the wilderness, to the widely dispersed trappers, that a Fair for trading, would be held at a very commodious and well-known spot on the above-mentioned stream. There was here a green, smooth, expanded meadow; the pasturage was rich; a clear mountain stream rippled through it, fringed by n.o.ble forest trees. The vicinity afforded an abundance of game.

Here they reared their camps and built their roaring fires. Band after band of trappers and traders came in with loud huzzas. Within a few days between two and three hundred men were a.s.sembled there, with five or six hundred horses or mules.

On one of the gorgeous days of the Indian summer, the encampment presented a spectacle of beauty which even to these rude men was enchanting. There was the distant, encircling outline of the Rocky mountains, many of the snow-capped peaks piercing the clouds. Scattered through the groves, which were free from underbrush, and whose surface was carpeted with the tufted gra.s.s, were seen the huts of the mountaineers in every variety of the picturesque, and even of the grotesque. Some were formed of the well tanned robes of the buffalo; some of boughs, twigs and bark; some of ma.s.sive logs. Before all these huts, fires were burning at all times of the day, and food was being cooked and devoured by these ever-hungry men.

Haunches of venison, prairie chickens, and trout from the stream, were emitting their savory odors, as they were turned on their spits before the glowing embers.

The cattle, not even tethered, were grazing over the fertile plain. It was indeed a wild, weird-like, semi-barbaric Fair which was thus held in the very heart of the wilderness. Men of many nationalities were present, in every variety of grotesque costume; and not a few Indians were there, with scarcely any costume at all. For nearly two months the Fair continued, with comings and goings, while hill and plain often resounded with revelry.

At length the festival was dissolved, and the mountaineers, breaking up into smaller bands, separated. The traders, with their horses loaded down with the furs, returned to the marts of civilization. The trappers again directed their steps to the solitudes of the remoter streams.

Kit Carson joined a party of fifty men, to explore the highest tributaries of the Missouri river. The region was occupied by a numerous band of warlike Indians, called Blackfeet. Many of the warriors had obtained rifles. The itinerant trader could not refrain from furnishing the Indians with guns and ammunition, at the exorbitant prices which the savages were ready to pay. It shows the superiority of the white men, that fifty of them ventured to enter upon these plains and into these defiles, where thousands of these well-armed warriors were watching for their destruction.

The enterprise proved more bold than successful. The trappers found the Indians so vigilant and hostile, that it was necessary to protect themselves by an intrenched camp. They had to adopt the most wearisome precautions to protect their animals, never allowing them to graze beyond rifle distance from the camp, unless under a strong guard. Matters grew daily more and more desperate. The Indians seemed to be gathering from great distances, so as almost to surround the encampment. If any small party wandered a mile, to examine their traps, they were pretty sure to find the traps stolen, and to be fired upon from ambush. This state of affairs at length constrained them to quit the country. Like an army, exposed hourly to an attack from its foes, this heroic band of fifty men commenced its march in military array, watching with an eagle eye, knowing not but that at any moment hundreds of strongly mounted, well-armed savages might come rushing down upon them. They could indulge in no rest, till they got beyond the territory of the Blackfeet.

A march of one or two hundred miles brought them to the banks of the Big Snake river. It was the month of November. In those northern lat.i.tudes winter was setting in with much severity. The hill-tops were covered with snow; the streams were coated with ice; freezing blasts from the mountains swept the bleak plains and the narrow defiles. It was necessary to go into winter quarters for a couple of months. But there was no discomfort in this.

They selected a snug valley having a southern exposure, with a northern barrier of hills, and in the midst of a wide-spread grove which fringed a pure mountain stream. There were fifty men. Every man belonged to the working cla.s.s. Every man was skilled in the trades of hunting, trapping, wigwam-building, cooking, and tailoring. A few hours' work reared their cosey huts. Fuel was cheap and abundant. The broadcloth for their clothing was already woven on the backs of buffaloes, bears, deer and wolves. Their own nimble hands speedily formed them into garments impervious to wind and cold. They had laid in quite a store of game, which the cold weather preserved, and there was enough more within their reach. And fortunately for them all, nature's law of prohibition, had effectually banished from the whole region all intoxicating drinks. Where there is no whiskey there is rarely any quarrel. The pure mountain stream supplied them with their health-giving beverage.

In a few days everything was cosey and comfortable around them. During the months of December and January, and until the middle of February, while wintry blasts swept the hills, warmth, abundance and friendliness reigned in these sheltered, cheerful huts in a Rocky Mountain valley.

There was one exciting event which disturbed the serenity of this winter encampment.

A band of Blackfeet Indians had cautiously dogged their footsteps, watching for an opportunity to stampede their horses. One very dark night, a number of these savages, supported by quite a numerous band of warriors, crept, like wolves, into the grazing ground of the horses, and succeeded in seizing eighteen of them, with which they made off rapidly towards their own country. The loss was not discovered until morning. After a few moments' deliberation it was decided that the valuable property must be recovered if possible, and the Indians chastised for such insolence.

The unanimous voice called upon Kit Carson to lead the enterprise, and to select his men. He took eleven. In a few minutes they were all mounted; a blanket their only baggage; their rifles and ammunition their only stores.

The ground was covered with snow. These veteran mountaineers knew well when and how to spare their horses for a continuous pursuit.

The Indians being more numerous, having horses to lead, and with their steeds somewhat jaded with the long journey from their own country, could not travel as fast as their pursuers were able to do with their fresh animals. Still the savages had so much the start that it required fifty miles of sharp riding before they were overtaken. Fortunately for the pursuers, there had been recently a heavy fall of snow, so that the Indians were under the necessity of breaking a path. Their party was so large that the white men were furnished with a clearly marked, well-trodden trail. This toil through the snow, seems quite to have exhausted the strength of the horses of the Indians. They had been compelled to stop at noonday to refresh the animals. A spot had been selected on a hill-side, where the wind had blown away the snow, and where the horses found, for grazing, an abundance of succulent dried gra.s.s.

Suddenly, and probably not a little to their consternation, the twelve trappers, rounding an eminence on the full trot, appeared before them.

Carson halted his troop to reconnoitre; for his foes were strongly posted and far outnumbered him. The savages, seeing the impossibility of immediately gathering and mounting their horses for flight, cunningly sent a flag of truce to solicit a parley. According to their custom, this flag consisted of one of their warriors advancing entirely unarmed, half-way to the opposing band. There he stopped, and folding his arms, waited for some one of the other party similarly weaponless, to come forward to confer with him.

These savage thieves manifested a degree of intelligence in their cunning, which was hardly to have been expected of them. Through their interpreter they a.s.sumed an air of perfect innocence, affecting great surprise that the horses belonged to the trappers, saying that they supposed that they had been robbing their hereditary foes, the Snake Indians.

"Nothing would induce us," said these barbarian diplomatists, "to commit any depredations upon our friends the white men."

Such barefaced falsehood did not, for a moment, deceive Kit Carson. But it was needful for him to move with great caution. The number of the Indians, their position, their weapons, and the nature of the ground upon which they had met, rendered the result of a battle very doubtful. It would not do for Carson to manifest the slightest trepidation, or the least doubt of his ability to recover the stolen property, and to chastise the marauders.

After some pretty severe questioning, he suggested that since they were friends, they should all meet in council unarmed, and smoke the calumet of peace. There are generally some points of honor, which will bind the most abandoned men. Such was the smoking of the pipe of peace with the savages.

A large fire was built. The two parties met around it. The calumet was lighted, and pa.s.sed around to each person present. Every one of the savages first puffed two whiffs, and the white men then did the same. This was the solemn pledge that there should be no treachery.

The council then commenced. Several of the Indian warriors made long and wordy speeches, with many protestations of friendship, but carefully avoiding any offer to restore the stolen animals. Mr. Carson listened patiently and made no response, until they had talked themselves out. He then simply replied, that he was very happy to learn that the Indians were friendly in their feelings toward the whites, and that the taking of the animals was a mistake. The trappers would therefore overlook the affair, and peacefully return home with the restored horses.

The Indian orators again began to chatter, branching off upon various points irrelevant to the question at issue. But Mr. Carson was in no mood to be drawn into a profitless palaver. To these eloquent speeches he made no response, but simply demanded the return of the horses.

The Indians began to bl.u.s.ter, to talk loud and to grow insolent. But Mr.

Carson never allowed himself to lose his temper. A man in a pa.s.sion seldom acts wisely. With calm persistence he said, "I can listen to no overtures of peace, until our horses are restored." Still the Indians hesitated to provoke a battle in which some of their warriors would undoubtedly fall.

At length they sent out and brought in five of the poorest and most exhausted of the horses, saying that these were all that they could or would restore.

The trappers accepted this as a declaration of war. In a body they retired to seize their rifles and to submit the question to the arbitrament of battle. The savages also, with tumultuous howlings, rushed to grasp their guns. The battle immediately commenced, each party seeking the shelter of trees. But for the dread in which the savages stood of the powers of the white men, the advantages would have been in their favor ten to one. There were unerring marksmen on both sides. No one could expose himself to the aim of either party without almost certain death. Kit Carson and one of his companions, by the name of Markhead, were the foremost of the band of trappers, and they stood behind trees not far from each other. As Carson was watching the movements of a burly savage, who was endeavoring to get a shot at him, he saw another savage taking deliberate aim, from his concealment, at Markhead.

With the rapidity of thought Carson wheeled around, and at the same instant the bullet from his rifle pierced the heart of the savage and he fell dead. But there was another report, almost simultaneous with that from Carson's gun. A bullet whizzed through the air, touched the bark of the tree, behind which nearly the whole of Carson's body was concealed, and severed one of the sinews of his shoulder, shattering a portion of the bone. The blood gushed freely from the wound, and Carson fell, almost fainting, to the ground. With much difficulty his friends succeeded in bearing him off from the field, and in their rough kindness ministered to his wants.

This loss of Carson's guidance and arm was irreparable and fatal to the trappers. Still they continued the battle valiantly, holding the Indians at bay until night came. The night was bitter cold. The trappers could not light any fire, for it would surely guide the Indians to their retreat, and present them as fair targets to the bullets of the savages.

Disappointed as these bold men were, they had the consolation of feeling that the wound of their leader had not pa.s.sed unavenged. They were sure that several of the Indians had been killed and many wounded. Though they did not doubt that the Indians would still fight desperately in defence, they did not fear that they would venture to pursue and to attack the trappers where they could choose their own ground. The trappers therefore, bearing as tenderly as possible their wounded leader, commenced their return to the camp which they reached in safety. The savages, as it afterward appeared, fled as rapidly as possible in the other direction.

The adventure added to the reputation of Kit Carson. All admitted that it was to save the life of a comrade that he had imperilled his own. And no one doubted that, but for his wound, his sagacity would have triumphed over the savages, and that he would have brought back all the horses. It was immediately decided, in general council, that another expedition of thirty men, under Captain Bridger, should pursue and chastise the thieves.

This well armed party vigorously followed the Indian trail for several days. But the savages had fled so rapidly, into distant and unknown parts, that they could not be overtaken. The trappers returned disappointed to their camp.

Spring was returning with its milder breezes and its warmer sun. The time for the spring hunt had commenced. There were no hostile Indians in the vicinity to disturb the trappers. Success, surpa.s.sing their most sanguine expectations, attended their efforts. Every morning the trappers came in from their various directions laden with furs. All were elated with their extraordinary prosperity. There is the spring hunting and the fall hunting. But there is a period in midsummer when the fur is valueless or cannot easily be taken. Game was then abundant, camping was a luxury. This was the time selected by the traders for their Fairs in the wilderness.

Here, as we have mentioned, there was exchange of the commodities needed in mountaineer-life, for the furs the trappers had taken during the autumn, winter and spring. There was at this time another rendezvous on Green river, where there was to be a renewal of the scenes of the past year.

Kit Carson very speedily recovered from his wounds. His perfect health and temperate habits caused a cure, which seemed almost miraculous. As we have mentioned, these mountaineers were beyond the limits of the laws. There was no governmental protection whatever. Every man was compelled to be his own protector, filling the threefold office of judge, jury and executioner.