The Fall Hunt--McCoy of the Hudson's Bay Company organizes a
Trapping Party which Kit Carson joins--The Hunt--Scarcity of
Beaver on Humboldt River--The Party is divided--Kit Carson
with a majority of the Men goes to Fort Hall--Hardships and
Privations met with--Buffalo Hunt--All their Animals stolen
in the Night by a Party of Blackfeet Indians--Arrival of McCoy
from Fort Walla Walla--The Rendezvous--Kit Carson joins a
strong Band--The Small Pox among the Blackfeet Indians--The
Crow Indians on good terms with the Whites--Intense
Cold--Immense Herds of Buffalo--Danger of their goring to
death the Horses--The Spring Hunt--The Blackfeet Indian
Village overtaken--A desperate Fight with these Indians--The
Rendezvous--Sir William Stuart and a favorite Missionary--Kit
Carson goes an a Trading Expedition to the Navajoe
Indians--The Return--He accepts the post of Hunter of the
Trading Post at Brown's Hole.

Arrangements for the fall hunt were now in active progress among the
trappers. Though the reader may find some similarity of fact and idea
as we progress in this part of the Life of Kit Carson, the interest
which hangs about it, nevertheless, will not, or should not be
dampened, because this pen-painting of his long and active experience
is a better and more faithful exhibit of those qualifications,
knowledge and skill which afterwards made him, first the guide and
then the bosom friend of the illustrious Fremont, than any assertions
whether authenticated by published record, whether rested upon
statement on knowledge, information and belief of acquaintances and
friends, or, whether facts taken from the thousand allusions to his
exploits which have from time to time flooded the press of the United
States.

The company of trappers which had been so fortunate as to secure the
services of Kit Carson, for facts seem now to warrant us in employing
this language of just praise, set out for the Yellow Stone River,
which stream they safely reached, and on which they set their traps.
Dame Fortune here seemed to be in unpleasant mood. Crossing the
country from the Yellow Stone to the Big Horn River, they again
courted the old lady's smile with stoical patience, but with no better
results. They next extended their efforts to the three forks of the
Missouri River; also, to the Big Snake River. The fickle old lady
proved scornful on all these streams, and finally, on the