Since the time when Kit Carson first joined a trapping expedition, up to the time of his arrival at Bent's Fort, a period of eight long years, he had known no rest from arduous toil. Not even when, to the reader, he was apparently idle, buried in the deep snows of the Rocky Mountains and awaiting the return of Spring, has he rested from toil. Even then his daily life has been given up to bodily fatigue and danger, frequently in scenes which, although of thrilling interest, are too lengthy for this narrative. It has been our purpose thus far to present Kit Carson undergoing his novitiate. We regard, and we think a world will eventually regard, this extraordinary man as one raised up by Providence to fulfill a destiny of His all-wise decree. It is premature for us, at this stage of our work, to advance the argument upon which this conclusion, so irresistibly to our mind, is deduced. We have yet before us an array of historical fact and incident to relate, without parallel in the history of nations, and in which Kit Carson plays no insignificant part. For these eight years of stirring practical life, Kit Carson, relying upon his beloved rifle for his sustenance and protection, had penetrated every part of the interior of the North American Continent, setting his traps upon every river of note which rises within this interior, and tracing them from the little springs which originate them to the wide mouths from which they pour their surcharged waters into the mighty viaducts or drains of the vast prairies, and the mighty leviathan ranges of the Rocky Mountains. In this time he had wandered over a wild territory equal in its dimensions to nearly all of the empires, kingdoms and principalities of Europe combined. His journeys, as it has already appeared, were made sometimes on foot and sometimes on horseback. By themselves, his travels will be called no trivial undertakings. Each fresh adventure led him into regions where but seldom, and more frequently never, had a white man trod the soil. He was, therefore, now an explorer in every sense of that distinguishing word, with the single exception that he had not produced the results which the early culture and advantages of a scientific and classical education might have brought about. But the history of the world furnishes few examples, if indeed any, where the physical training, practical skill and knowledge of a country, as possessed by Kit Carson, have been united with scholastic lore. At all events, in the wisdom of that special Providence which was intending the gold mines of California to be consecrated to the advancement of American civilization, with its religious freedom, personal liberties and sacred literature, the novitiate of Kit Carson was decreed to be wholly of a practical nature. But while Kit Carson, with his rifle, was thus reared up in character, courage and experience, the same All-wise hand was directing the pathway of a mind, equal to accomplish His call, through