d to find some spot near a running stream or a
spring, where the animals could find pasture. The resting for a couple of
hours gave them time for their dinner, which they had mainly picked up by
the way.

An hour or two before sundown the camping ground was selected, the animals
were tethered, often in luxuriant grass, and the hardy pioneers, by no
means immoderately fatigued by the day's journey, having eaten their
supper, which a good appetite rendered sumptuous, spent the time till
sleep closed their eyelids in telling stories and singing songs. A very
careful guard was set, and the adventurers enjoyed sound sleep till, with
the dawn, the bugle call again summoned them. Under ordinary circumstances
hardy men of a roving turn of mind, found very great attractions in this
adventurous life. They were by no means willing to exchange its
excitements for the monotonous labors of the field or the shop.

CHAPTER II.

Life in the Wilderness.

A Surgical Operation.--A Winter with Kin Cade.--Study of the
Languages and Geography.--Return towards Missouri.--Engagement
with a new Company and Strange Adventures.--The
Rattlesnake.--Anecdote of Kit Carson.--The Sahara.--New
Engagements.--Trip to El Paso.--Trapping and Hunting.--Prairie
Scenery.--The Trapper's Outfit.--Night Encampment.--Testimony of
an Amateur Hunter.

The company of traders which Kit had joined enjoyed, on the whole, a
prosperous expedition. They met with no hostile Indians and, with one
exception, encountered nothing which they could deem a hardship. There was
one exception, which most persons would deem a terrible one. The
accidental discharge of a gun, incautiously handled, shattered a man's
arm, shivering the bone to splinters. The arm rapidly grew inflamed,
became terribly painful, and must be amputated or the life lost. There was
no one in the party who knew anything of surgery. But they had a razor, a
handsaw and a bar of iron.

It shows the estimation in which the firm, gentle, and yet almost womanly
Kit Carson was held, that he was chosen to perform the operation. Two
others were to assist him. The sufferer took his seat, and was held
firmly, that in his anguish his struggles might not interfere with the
progress of the knife. This boy of but eighteen years then, with great
apparent coolness, undertook this formidable act of surgery.

He bound a ligature around the arm very tightly, to arrest, as far as
possible