t his steps towards St. Louis. In this city he remained ten days.
As it was the first time, since he had reached manhood, that he had viewed
a town of any magnitude, he was greatly interested. But ten days of
sight-seeing wearied him. He resolved to return to his mountain home,
where he could breathe the pure air of Heaven and where manners and
customs conformed to his wild life and were more congenial to his tastes.
He engaged a passage on the first steamboat which was bound up the
Missouri river."

Kit Carson was instinctively a student. In whatever situation he was
placed he was ever endeavoring to learn something new. He was also always
drawn, by constitutional taste and preference towards men of culture, and
high moral worth. On board the steamer, he found himself almost a perfect
stranger. Though a small man in frame, modest and unobtrusive, there was
something in his kindly handsome face and winning manners, which
invariably attracted attention. As he quietly wandered over the boat,
studying its machinery, the discipline of the crew and the faces of his
fellow passengers, he found himself irresistibly drawn towards one whose
countenance and dignified bearing indicated that he was decidedly above
most of those on board.

It is said that "the eagle eye, the forehead, the form, the movements, the
general features, the smile, the quiet dignity of the man, each and all
these attributes of his manhood had been carefully noted by the wary and
hardy mountaineer, and had not failed to awaken in his breast a feeling of
admiration and respect."

Kit Carson entered into conversation with this man. Immediately an
attachment sprang up between them, which grew increasingly strong through
many subsequent years. The new friend whom Carson had thus found was
Lieutenant John C. Fremont, of the United States corps of Topographical
Engineers. He had been commissioned by the Government to explore and
report upon the country between the frontiers of Missouri and the South
Pass in the Rocky mountains, on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte
rivers.

Lieutenant Fremont had left Washington, and arrived at St. Louis on the
twenty-second of May 1842. Here he engaged a party of twenty-one men,
principally Creole and Canadian boatmen, who were familiar with Indian
life, having been long engaged in the service of the various fur
companies. In addition to these boatmen, Lieutenant Fremont had under his
charge, Henry Brandt, nineteen year