is friends. The trappers, therefore, wandered at pleasure without
fear of molestation. Mr. Carson took but one trapper with him, with two or
three pack mules. They were very successful, and in a few weeks obtained
as many furs as their animals could carry.

With these they went to a trading post, not very far distant from them
called Fort Robidoux. Here their furs were disposed of to good advantage.
Mr. Carson, having judiciously invested his gains, organized another party
of five trappers, and traversed an unpeopled wilderness for a distance of
about two hundred miles until he reached the wild ravines and pathless
solitudes of Grand river. This stream, whose junction with the Green
river forms the Colorado, takes its rise on the western declivity of the
Rocky mountains, amidst its most wild and savage glens. Trapping down this
river with satisfactory success, late in the autumn he reached Green
river. Falling snows and piercing winds admonished him that the time had
come again to retire to winter quarters.

He repaired to Brown's Hole, the well known and beautiful valley which he
had often visited before. Here he passed an uneventful but pleasant
winter. With the earliest spring he again directed his footsteps to the
country of the Utahs in the remote north. He was successful in trapping,
and as the heat of summer came, he again turned his steps, with well laden
mules, to Fort Robidoux. Here he found, to his disappointment, that beaver
fur had greatly deteriorated in value. His skins would scarcely bring him
enough to pay for the trouble of taking them. This was caused mainly by
the use of silk instead of fur, throughout Europe and America, in the
manufacture of hats.

Kit Carson saw at a glance, that his favorite occupation was gone; that he
and the other trappers would be compelled to seek some other employment.
In company with five men of a decidedly higher order than the common run
of trappers, he struck for the head waters of Arkansas river. Following
this stream down along the immense defile which nature seems to have
opened for it through the Rocky mountains, they approached Fort Bent,
which is about one hundred and fifty miles east of that gigantic barrier.

Mr. Carson's companions on this trip, were some of them at least, very
peculiar characters,--very interesting specimens of the kind of men who
are drawn from the haunts of civilization to the wilderness. One was a
man, probably partially insane, who was k