The Life of Kit Carson: Hunter, Trapper, Guide, Indian Agent and Colonel U.S.A by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Author:Edward Sylvester Ellis [Ellis, Edward Sylvester]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History
ISBN: 4057664617903
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2019-11-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXII.

Table of Contents

Kit Carson Hears Surprising News—He Visits Fremont—Is Re-engaged as

Guide—Fremont's Account of his Visit to Salt Lake.

Kit Carson was astonished on reaching Bent's Fort to learn that Lieutenant Fremont had gone by on his second exploring expedition but a few days before. Carson felt a strong attachment for his old leader and galloped nearly a hundred miles to overtake him. Fremont gave the mountaineer most cordial greeting and insisted so strongly on his accompanying him that Carson could not refuse.

The object of Fremont's second exploration was to connect the survey of the previous year with those of Commander Wilkes on the Pacific coast. The first objective point was the Great Salt Lake of Utah, of which very little was known at that time.

Carson was sent back to the fort to procure a number of mules. He did as directed and rejoined Fremont at St. Vrain's Fort. The region traversed by these explorers is so well known today that it is hard to realize what a terra incognita it was but a short time since. Perhaps it will be most instructive at this point to quote the words of the great Pathfinder himself. The party arrived on the 21st of August on the Bear River, one of the principal tributaries of Great Salt Lake. The narrative of Fremont proceeds:

"We were now entering a region, which for us possessed a strange and extraordinary interest. We were upon the waters of the famous lake which forms a salient point among the remarkable geographical features of the country, and around which the vague and superstitious accounts of the trappers had thrown a delightful obscurity, which we anticipated pleasure in dispelling, but which, in the meantime, left a crowded field for the exercise of our imagination.

"In our occasional conversations with the few old hunters who had visited the region, it had been a subject of frequent speculation; and the wonders which they related were not the less agreeable because they were highly exaggerated and impossible.

"Hitherto this lake had been seen only by trappers, who were wandering through the country in search of new beaver streams, caring very little for geography; its islands had never been visited; and none were to be found who had entirely made the circuit of its shores, and no instrumental observations, or geographical survey of any description, had ever been made anywhere in the neighboring region. It was generally supposed that it had no visible outlet; but, among the trappers, including those in my own camp, were many who believed that somewhere on its surface was a terrible whirlpool, through which its waters found their way to the ocean by some subterranean communication. All these things had been made a frequent subject of discussion in our desultory conversations around the fires at night; and my own mind had become tolerably well filled with their indefinite pictures, and insensibly colored with their romantic descriptions, which, in the pleasure of excitement, I was well disposed to believe, and half expected to realize.

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