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!”