come.

About a hundred and fifty miles north of Santa Fe there was a small
collection of huts called Taos, inhabited by trappers and hunters. This
pursuit of game for food and fur was the employment which was congenial to
him above all others. He directed his steps to Taos and at once entered
into an engagement with Mr. Ewing Young, making his cabin headquarters.

Hunting and trapping were somewhat different employments, though perhaps
equally exciting. The hunter depended upon his rifle, and was mainly in
search of food. Still the robe of the buffalo and the coat of the grizzly
bear were very useful in various ways, in the cabin of the hunter, and the
softly tanned skin of the deer was invaluable, furnishing every article of
clothing, shirt, leggins and moccasins. The skins of these animals had
also a market value.

But the trapper was in pursuit of furs only. Though the men engaged in
this pursuit were occasionally exposed to great hardship and suffering,
still, in general they probably had, in the gratification of congenial
tastes, a full share of such happiness as this world can furnish.

Young Carson, at the age of nineteen, had no taste for the scholarly
seclusion of Yale or Harvard, no desire to stand all day behind the
counter of the dry-goods store, or to work amid the crowd and the hum of
the factory; he had no wish for what is called society, or to saunter down
Broadway with his cigar and his cane, to exhibit his tightly-fitting
garments; but he did love to set out on a hunting and trapping expedition.
Let us follow him in one of these adventures.

It is a bright morning of the Indian summer, far along in November. There
is a small log cabin on a mound of the wilderness. A dense forest breaks
the northern winds. A rippling stream runs by the door. Beyond lies the
prairie rich in verdure and enamelled with gorgeous autumnal flowers.
Herds of buffalo are grazing in groups of hundreds, sometimes of
thousands, on the broad expanse. Gangs of deer are seen, graceful,
beautiful, following in the train of the antlered bucks, and with scent so
keen and eyes so piercing that it requires the utmost skill of the hunter
to approach them within rifle shot. Clouds of prairie chickens and quails
are floating here and there in their short flight. It is the paradise of
the hunter. Let no one think this description overdrawn. It would be
difficult to exaggerate the loveliness of the flower-spangled prairie on a
bright autum