We left Carson at Robideau Fort, tired of the pursuit of trapping, as soon as it had become unprofitable, and while there, he arranged with three or four other trappers, to come down to Bent's Fort. The trip was like others made at this season, through a country where the rifle would supply food for the party, and arriving at Bent's Fort, where his name was already well-known, Carson could not long be idle. He engaged himself to Messrs. Bent and St. Vrain, as hunter to the fort, preferring this by far to the idea of seeking employment nearer civilized life. Indeed no situation could have pleased him better, if we may judge from the fact that he continued in it for eight years, and until the connection with his employers was broken by the death of one of the partners, Col. Bent. Gov. Bent, since appointed to the office of chief magistrate of New Mexico, by the United States Government, had been killed by Mexican Indians, and was universally mourned by Americans and Indians wherever he was known. Mr. St. Vrain, the other partner, was active during the Mexican war, since the date of which we write, still lives, and is esteemed, as a father, by many an early mountaineer. Carson owed him gratitude for kindly sympathy and words of counsel, when yet a youth he was commencing his mountain life, and Dr. Peters, the first biographer of Kit Carson, dedicates his book to Col. St. Vrain, asserting that he was the first to discover and direct Carson's talents to the path in which they were employed. For both of these gentlemanly proprietors, Carson cherished a warm friendship, nor was there ever an unpleasant occurrence between them. When game was plenty, he supplied the forty mouths to be filled with ease, but when it was scarce, his task was sometimes difficult, but skill and experience enabled him to triumph over every obstacle. It is not strange that with such long experience Carson became the most skillful of hunters, and won the name of the "Nestor of the Rocky Mountains." Among the Indians he had earned the undisputed title of "Monarch of the Prairies." But while he killed thousands of elk, deer, and antelope, nor disdained the rabbit and the grouse, and took the wild goose on the wing, of all the game of beast or bird, he liked the best to hunt the buffalo, for there was an excitement in the chase of that noble animal which aroused his spirits to the highest pitch of excitement. Assuredly, Christopher Carson's _is_ "a life out of the usual routine, and checkered with adventures which have sorely tested the courage and endurance of this wonderful man." Col. St. Vrain, in the preface to Peters' Life of Carson, says,