Kit Carson 
27 
presently became ill, and no amount of entreaty was sufficient 
to gain permission for the son to see him even for a moment. 
He died in his cell. After much argument and the intercession 
of some of the minor officers, Pattie was permitted liberty long 
enough to attend the funeral. At last the men were allowed 
to go back for the 
furs, which no doubt 
the wily general in¬ 
tended to confiscate, 
Pattie himself being 
retained as a hostage. 
But the furs had been 
ruined by a rise of 
the river. Smallpox 
then began to rage 
on the coast, and 
through this fact Pat¬ 
tie finally gained his 
freedom. Having 
with him a quantity 
of vaccine virus, he 
was able to barter 
skill in vaccinating 
the populace for 
liberty, though it was 
tardily and grudg- 
ingly granted. He 
was able, at length, 
to get away from 
California, and returned, broken in health and penniless, by way 
of the City of Mexico, to his old home near Cincinnati, after six 
years of extraordinary travel through the wildest portions of 
the Rocky Mountain region and the extreme Southwest. 
In the year 1826, an afterwards famous personage appeared 
in the valley of the Colorado, on the Gila branch, being no less 
than Kit Carson,' one of the greatest scouts and trappers of all. 
' Life of Kit Carson^ by Charles Burdett. There are several Lives by other 
biographers. 
The “ Colob ” Country, Southern Utah. 
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp. 
