The governor had already sent a hundred riders but these had been caught and wiped out by a force of Texans, only one escaping, who, during the heat of the fight, caught a saddled Texan pony and rode off. Meanwhile the governor--Armijo--sent his reply for Carson to carry to the caravan. He said he was marching with a large force, and he did so. But when the survivor of the lost hundred rode into Armijo’s camp with his bad news, the whole outfit rolled their tails for home. Carson, with the governor’s letter, and the news of plentiful trouble, reached the Mexican caravan, which decided not to leave the protecting American cavalry camped on the boundary-line. What with Texan raiders, border ruffians, Utes, Apaches, Comanches, and other little drawbacks, the caravan trade on the Santa Fe trail was never dull for a moment. During these years one finds Kit Carson’s tracks all over the West about as hard to follow as those of a flea in a blanket. Here, for example, is a description of the American army of the Bear Flag republic seizing California in 1846. “A vast cloud of dust appeared first, and thence, a long file, emerged this wildest wild party. Fremont rode ahead--a spare, active-looking man, with such an eye! He was dressed in a blouse and leggings and wore a felt hat. After him came five Delaware Indians, who were his body-guard, and have been with him through all his wanderings; they had charge of the baggage horses. The rest, many of them blacker than the Indians, rode two and two, the rifle held in one hand across the pommel of the saddle. Thirty-nine of them there are his regular men, the rest are loafers picked up lately; his original men are principally backwoodsmen from the state of Tennessee, and the banks of the upper waters of the Missouri.... The dress of these men was principally a long loose coat of deerskin, tied with thongs in front; trousers of the same, which when wet through, they take off, scrape well inside with a knife, and put on as soon as dry. The saddles were of various fashions, though these and a large drove of horses, and a brass field gun, were things they had picked up about California. They are allowed no liquor; this, no doubt, has much to do with their good conduct; and the discipline, too, is very strict.” One of these men was Kit Carson, sent off in October to Washington on the Atlantic, three thousand miles away, with news that California was conquered for the United States, by a party of sixty men. In New Mexico, Kit met General Kearney, and told him that the Californians were a pack of cowards. So the general sent back his troops, marching on with only one hundred dragoons. But the Californians were not cowards, they had risen against the American invasion, they were fighting magnificently, and Fremont had rather a bad time before he completed the conquest.