The Life of Kit Carson

Visit to New Mexico-Act

nts-Joins a Party of T

ns-Visits the Sa

Kentucky, the scene of the principal exploits of Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, the Wetzel brothers a

ettled and abounding with wild animals and treacherous Indians. The father of Carson, like most of the early pioneers, divided his time between cultivating the land and hunting the game in the forests. His house was made strong a

be believed, however, that under the tutelage of his father and mother, he picked up a fair knowledge of the rudimentary

which produced some of the finest marksmen in the world. It was inevitable that he should form a passion for

start for Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, one of the most interesting towns in the southwest. The majority of its population are of Spanish and Mexican origin and speak Spanish. It is the centre of supplies for the surrounding country, and is oft

nt town are made of adobe, one story high, and the streets are unpaved, narrow, crooked and ill looking. The inhabitants are of a low order, scarcely entitled to be ranked above the half

nd prairies, through a country infested with fierce Indians, without the loss of one of their number. This immunity was due to their vi

only a valuable knowledge of the country and its people, but became familiar with the Spanish language-an attainment which proved invaluable to him in after years. In the spring, he joined a party which set out f

bout to start to El Paso, on the Rio Grande, near the frontier of New Mexico. He did not stay long before drifting back to Santa Fe, and finally to Taos, where he hired out

nd another of those ancient towns whose history forms one of the most interesting features of the country. It was founded in 1691 and a quarter of a

his way once more to Taos. The employment most congenial to Carson's nature, and the one which he had been seeking ever since he left home, was that of hunter and trapper. The scarred veterans whom he met in the fronti

to Taos, having been driven from their trapping grounds by the Indians. The employer set about raising a party strong enough to return to the trapping grounds, chastis

men, whereas their real purpose was to engage in trapping. With a view of misleading the officers, they took a roundabout route which delayed their arrival in the section. Nevertheless, the hunters were desirous of punishing the Indians who had taken such liberties with the small party that preceded them. On one of the tributaries of the Gila, the trappers came upon the identical band

as decided to divide into two parties, one of which returned to New Mexico, while the other pushed on toward the Sacramento Valley in California. Carson accompanied the latter, entering the region at that early day when no white man dreamed of the vast wealth of gold and precious metals which so crowded her soil a