y, then in the golden sunlight of winter, the rock sank
down to its normal proportions, and cut the clear blue of the sky with
sharply marked lines.

In the days when the Santa Fe trade was at its height, the Pawnees
were the most formidable tribe on the eastern central plains, and the
freighters and trappers rarely escaped a skirmish with them either at
the crossing of the Walnut, Pawnee Rock, the Fork of the Pawnee, or at
Little and Big Coon creeks. To-day what is left of the historic hill
looks down only upon peaceful homes and fruitful fields, whereas for
hundreds of years it witnessed nothing but battle and death, and almost
every yard of brown sod at its base covered a skeleton. In place of the
horrid yell of the infuriated savage, as he wrenched off the reeking
scalp of his victim, the whistle of the locomotive and the pleasant
whirr of the reaping-machine is heard; where the death-cry of the
painted warrior rang mournfully over the silent prairie, the waving
grain is singing in beautiful rhythm as it bows to the summer breeze.

Pawnee Rock received its name in a baptism of blood, but there are
many versions as to the time and sponsors. It was there that Kit Carson
killed his first Indian, and from that fight, as he told me himself, the
broken mass of red sandstone was given its distinctive title.

It was late in the spring of 1826; Kit was then a mere boy, only
seventeen years old, and as green as any boy of his age who had never
been forty miles from the place where he was born. Colonel Ceran St.
Vrain, then a prominent agent of one of the great fur companies, was
fitting out an expedition destined for the far-off Rocky Mountains, the
members of which, all trappers, were to obtain the skins of the buffalo,
beaver, otter, mink, and other valuable fur-bearing animals that then
roamed in immense numbers on the vast plains or in the hills, and were
also to trade with the various tribes of Indians on the borders of
Mexico.

Carson joined this expedition, which was composed of twenty-six mule
wagons, some loose stock, and forty-two men. The boy was hired to help
drive the extra animals, hunt game, stand guard, and to make himself
generally useful, which, of course, included fighting Indians if any
were met with on the long route.

The expedition left Fort Osage one bright morning in May in excellent
spirits, and in a few hours turned abruptly to the west on the broad
Trail to the mountains. The great plains in t