serve. This to a mountaineer, who,
during a long period of years, had met every "pale face" as a brother,
was insupportable usage. In all haste he finished his business,
relinquished his contemplated journey through the States, and
started to return to his home in New Mexico. While upon the road, he
accidentally fell in with a friend; and, in reply to the question,
where have you been? said:

"After a lapse of many years, I thought I should like to see the
_whites_ again; so, I was going to the States. But the sample I've
seen in Kansas is enough to disgust _a man_ with their character. They
do nothing but get up war parties against one another; and, I would
much rather be in an Indian country than in civilized Kansas."
Mitchell is full of dry humor and commands the faculty of telling a
good story, which makes him a pleasant traveling companion.

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 ha