The Dispatch Bearer.

Colonel Fremont.--Hazardous Undertaking of Kit Carson.--Carson's
Courage and Prudence.--Threatened Danger.--Interview with General
Kearney, and Results.--Severe Skirmish.--Wonderful Escape of
Carson.--Daring Adventure.--Fearful Suffering.--Lieutenant
Beale.--Carson's Journey to Washington.--Adventures on his
Return.

Our explorers now pressed on for twenty-four hours without encountering
any molestation, though they saw many indications that the Indians were
hovering about their track. Hungry and weary, they reached Fort Lawson, on
the Sacramento river, where they tarried for a week to recruit. They then
followed down the river some distance, to the well-known camping-grounds,
"The Buttes."

War between the United States and Mexico was in active operation. Colonel
Fremont took the responsibility of capturing a weak Mexican post near by,
at Sonoma, where he obtained several cannon and some small arms. His
explorers being thus virtually resolved into an army, he marched, with Kit
Carson as nominal Lieutenant, for the capture of Monterey. Before he
reached there, the city was taken by an American squadron under Commodore
Sloat. Colonel Fremont obtained a ship to convey him, with his fast friend
Kit Carson, and one hundred and fifty bold mountaineers, who had attached
themselves to his fortunes, a few hundred miles down the coast, to San
Diego. Thence he marched upon Los Angelos.

It was becoming important to have some communication with Washington. To
send dispatches around by the cape, required a voyage of weary months. To
reach the capital by land, it was necessary to traverse an almost pathless
wilderness four thousand miles in extent. Whoever should undertake such an
enterprise, must not only live upon such food as he could pick up by the
way, but also be exposed to attack from innumerable bands of hostile
savages, urged on by still more hostile Mexicans.

On the fifteenth of September, 1846, Kit Carson undertook this hazardous
enterprise. He was placed in command of fifteen picked men. The utmost
vigilance was necessary every step of the way. He was instructed to make
the journey in sixty days. For two days, he pressed on his way without
molestation. The third day, he came suddenly in view of a large encampment
of Apache Indians. Each party discovered the other at the same moment.
There was instantly great commotion in the Indian camp; the warriors
running to and fr