f it, feasting on
the elk we had killed, and talking over the wonderful escape of the boys
and Little Rube."

CHAPTER XVI. KIT CARSON.

Of the famous men whose lives are so interwoven with the history of the
Old Santa Fe Trail that the story of the great highway is largely made
up of their individual exploits and acts of bravery, it has been my
fortune to have known nearly all intimately, during more than a third of
a century passed on the great plains and in the Rocky Mountains.

First of all, Christopher, or Kit, Carson, as he is familiarly known
to the world, stands at the head and front of celebrated frontiersmen,
trappers, scouts, guides, and Indian fighters.

I knew him well through a series of years, to the date of his death in
1868, but I shall confine myself to the events of his remarkable career
along the line of the Trail and its immediate environs. In 1826 a party
of Santa Fe traders passing near his father's home in Howard County,
Missouri, young Kit, who was then but seventeen years old, joined the
caravan as hunter. He was already an expert with the rifle, and thus
commenced his life of adventure on the great plains and in the Rocky
Mountains.

His first exhibition of that nerve and coolness in the presence of
danger which marked his whole life was in this initial trip across the
plains. When the caravan had arrived at the Arkansas River, somewhere
in the vicinity of the great bend of that stream, one of the teamsters,
while carelessly pulling his rifle toward him by the barrel, discharged
the weapon and received the ball in his arm, completely crushing the
bones. The blood from the wound flowed so copiously that he nearly lost
his life before it could be arrested. He was fixed up, however, and the
caravan proceeded on its journey, the man thinking no more seriously
of his injured arm. In a few days, however, the wound began to indicate
that gangrene had set in, and it was determined that only by an
amputation was it possible for him to live beyond a few days. Every
one of the older men of the caravan positively declined to attempt the
operation, as there were no instruments of any kind. At this juncture
Kit, realizing the extreme necessity of prompt action, stepped forward
and offered to do the job. He told the unfortunate sufferer that he had
had no experience in such matters, but that as no one else would do
it, he would take the chances. All the tools that Kit could find were
a razor,