Little of the eventful occurred in the long journey across Kansas to Fort Laramie, and so at last they arrived at the South Pass, having met no Indians at all, although they had feared the Sioux. Frémont rode across the gentle summit so long known to the fur traders, climbed the mountain that was later named for him, and returned to Fort Laramie in September, 1842. Thus ended his first expedition, which began his reputation as a “pathfinder.” Let him who has followed the travels of Kit Carson in the trapping trade state who was the real finder of the paths. After the first Frémont expedition, Carson returned to Bent’s Fort, and in February of 1843 married the young Mexican woman who remained his faithful companion throughout his life. Carson was sent with a message to Governor Armijo with a warning for the latter, but one hundred of the Mexicans connected with Armijo’s wagon train were killed by the Texans on the historic wagon road up the Arkansas River; we being thus now in touch with the strong and warlike population that, led by Houston, Travis, Fannin, Crockett, had been fighting the Spanish arms to the southward of Carson’s hunting grounds. Up to this time Kit Carson had been more savage than civilized. He had never cast a vote for any office. He had lived on the product of his rifle. He had learned the habits of the wild men and wild animals of the West. Yet he seems to have gained something of that forcefulness and self-confidence which sooner or later is bound to impress itself upon others; for on May twenty-ninth of 1843 we find Frémont again sending for him, and asking his services as guide for his second expedition. This time it was Frémont’s purpose to connect his last year’s work with the Pacific Coast surveys which had been begun by Wilkes. All know how Frémont exceeded his orders, how his wife pluckily held back from him the knowledge of his recall, and how this transcontinental expedition, by no means the first, though one of the most widely acclaimed, made its way over grounds new to Frémont but old to Carson. The first part of the journey was among the old trapping grounds along the North Fork of the Platte and on the Sweetwater, thence to Salt Lake—all points fully known to the fur trade many years before. The journey thence ran to Fort Hall and along the perfectly determined trail northwest to the Columbia River. Frémont then pushed on to Tlamath Lake, Oregon, heading thence for California. This country between the Tlamath Lake and the Sacramento valley was new even to Carson. Everybody supposed[31] that there was a great river, known as the Buena Ventura, which rose on the west side of the Rocky Mountains at a point directly opposite the headwaters of the Arkansas, and flowed westward directly into the Pacific ocean. The little fact of the Sierra Nevada mountain range was wholly overlooked.