Well, then, one day along comes that
durned Chivington and his cusses. They'd bin out several day's huntin'
Hostiles, and couldn't find none nowhar, and if they had, they'd have
skedaddled from 'em, you bet! So they jist lit upon these Friendlies,
and massacreed 'em--yes, sir, literally massacreed 'em--in cold blood,
in spite of our flag thar--yes, women and little children, even! Why,
Senator Foster told me with his own lips (and him and his Committee come
out yer from Washington, you know, and investigated this muss), that
that thar durned miscreant and his men shot down squaws, and blew the
brains out of little innocent children--pistoled little papooses in
the arms of their dead mothers, and even worse than this!--them durned
devils! and you call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? and pore Indians
savages!'

"'I tell you what, friends; I don't like a hostile Red Skin any more
than you do. And when they are hostile, I've fit 'em--fout 'em--and
expect to fight 'em--hard as any man. That's my business. But I never
yit drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would.
'Taint nateral for men to kill women and pore little children, and none
but a coward or a dog would do it. Of course when we white men do sich
awful things, why these pore ignorant critters don't know no better than
to foller suit. Pore things! Pore things! I've seen as much of 'em as
any man livin', and I can't help but pity 'em, right or wrong! They
once owned all this country, yes, Plains and Mountains, buffalo and
everything, but now they own next door to nuthin, and will soon be
gone.'

"Alas, poor Kit! He has already 'gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds.' But
the Indians had no truer friend, and Kit Carson would wish no prouder
epitaph than this. In talking thus he would frequently get his grammar
wrong, and his language was only the patois of the Border; but there
was an eloquence in his eye, and a pathos in his voice, that would
have touched a heart of stone, and a genuine manliness about him at all
times, that would have won him hosts of friends anywhere. And so, Kit
Carson, good friend, brave heart, generous soul, hail and farewell!

"Hoping these rough recollections may serve your purpose, I remain

"Very respectfully,

"Your obedient servant,

"JAMES F. RUSLING."

The following tribute to the matchless scout, hunter and guide is from
the Salt Lake Tribune:

He wrote his own biography and left it where the edition will ne