of them dropped instantly dead. Almost with the rapidity of
thought the rifles were loaded, and the little band rushed upon the
bewildered, terror-stricken, bleeding savages. The Indians scattered in
every direction. Eight were killed outright. Carson had no love of
slaughter. Many more, in their flight, might have been struck by the
bullet; but they were allowed to escape. All the horses were recovered
excepting the six which the Indians had killed.

Great was the rejoicing in the camp when the victorious party returned so
abundantly successful. One of the annalists of this extraordinary man
speaking of the enterprise, very truthfully writes:

"Carson, though at that day a youth in years and experience, had risen
rapidly in the estimation of all, and had excited the admiration and
enlisted the confidence of the entire band. When called upon to add his
counsel, concerning any doubtful enterprise, his masterly foresight and
shrewdness, as well as clearness in attending to details, gave him willing
auditors.

"But it was the modest deportment he invariably wore, which won for him
the love of his associates. Kit Carson's power in quickly conceiving the
safest plan of action in difficult emergencies, and his bravery, which in
his youth, sometimes amounted to rashness, caused his companions to follow
his leadership. His courage, promptitude, self-reliance, caution, sympathy
and care for the wounded, marked him at once as the master mind. Like the
great Napoleon, when he joined the army for his first campaign, he was a
hero, in spite of his youth, among men grown grey with experience."

The highest style of manhood, the most attractive character is that in
which the mildness and the delicacy of the woman is combined with the
energy and the fearlessness of the man. In Kit Carson we witness a
wonderful combination of these two qualities. An acquaintance of the
writer, who spent many years of his early life roving through the
wilderness of the far West, and who had often met Kit Carson, said he
never heard an oath from his lips. Even the rude and profane trappers
around him could appreciate the superior dignity of such a character.

Rev. Dr. Bushnell, speaking of the region in which our trappers were
engaged, says, "Middle California, lying between the head waters of the
two great rivers, and about four hundred and fifty or five hundred miles
long from north to south, is dividend lengthwise parallel to the coast,
into three