LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 235 



the last in height, but the first in every quality which 

 constitutes excellence in a mountaineer, whether of 

 indomitable courage, or perfect indifference to death or 

 danger ; with an iron frame capable of withstanding 

 hunger, thirst, heat, cold, fatigue, and hardships of 

 every kind ; of wonderful presence of mind, and endless 

 resources in times of peril ; with the instinct of an 

 animal, and the moral courage of a man who was 

 " tidier " for his inches than KIT CARSON, paragon of 

 mountaineers 1 * Small in stature, and slenderly 

 limbed, but with muscles of wire, with a fair complex- 

 ion and quiet intelligent features, to look at Kit none 

 would suppose that the mild-looking being before him 

 was an incarnate devil in Indian fight, and had raised 

 more hair from head of Redskins than any two men in 

 the western country ; and yet, thirty winters had 

 scarcely planted a line or furrow on his clean-shaven 

 face. No name, however, was better known in the 

 mountains from Yellow Stone to Spanish Peaks, from 

 Missouri to Columbia River than that of Kit Carson, 

 " raised " in Boonlick, county of Missouri State, and a 

 credit to the diggins that gave him birth. 



On Huerfano or Orphan Creek, so called from an 

 isolated hutte which stands on a prairie near the stream, 



* Since the time of which we speak, Kit Carson has distin- 

 guished himself in guiding the several U. S. exploring expedi- 

 tions, under Fremont, across the Rocky Mountains, and to all 

 parts of Oregon and California ; and for his services, the Presi- 

 dent of the United States presented the gallant Mountaineer 

 with the commission of lieutenant in a newly raised regiment of 

 mounted riflemen, of which his old leader Fremont is appointed 

 colonel. 



