The incidents which enliven and add interest to the historic page, have proved of spontaneous and vigorous growth in the new settlements of America. Nearly every book which deals with the early planting and progress of the American colonists and pioneers, contains full, and frequently glowing, descriptions of exploits in the forest; strifes of the hunter; fights with the savages; fearful and terrible surprises of lurking warriors, as they arouse the brave settler and his family from their midnight dreams by the wild, death-announcing war-whoop; hair-breadth escapes from the larger kinds of game, boldly bearded in their lair; the manly courage which never yields, but surmounts every obstacle presented by the unbroken and boundless forest; all these are subjects and facts which have already so many counterparts in book-thought, accessible to the general reader, that their details may be safely omitted during the boyhood days of young Carson. It is better, therefore, to pass over the youthful period of his eventful life, until he began to ripen into manhood. Kit Carson, at fifteen years of age, was no ordinary person. He had at this early age earned, and well earned, a reputation, on the basis of which the prediction was ventured in his behalf, that he would not fail to make and leave a mark upon the hearts of his countrymen. Those who knew him at the age of fifteen, hesitated not to say, "Kit Carson is the boy who will grow into a man of influence and renown." The chief points of his character which elicited this prediction were thus early clearly marked. Some of his traits were kindness and good qualities of heart, determined perseverance, indomitable will, unflinching courage, great quickness and shrewdness of perception, and promptitude in execution. The predictions uttered by the hardy rangers of the forest concerning a boy like Carson are seldom at fault; and Kit was one who, by many a youthful feat worthy the muscle of riper years, had endeared himself to their honest love. It was among such men and for such reason, that Kit Carson thus early in life had won the influence and rewards of a general favorite. His frame was slight, below the medium stature, closely knit together, and endowed with extraordinary elasticity. He had, even then, stood the test of much hard usage. What the body lacked in strength was more than compensated for by his indomitable will; consequently, at this early age, he was considered capable of performing a frontier man's work, both in tilling the soil and handling the rifle.