Thus into that post of Fort Laramie which they outward-bound had left on July 21, now on August 31 they inward-bound rode again, triumphant. Nothing in particular had occurred here; ’twas they who brought the main news—of a South Pass surveyed and a highest peak christened and a Platte River boldly penetrated. “And all we did was to wind an old chronometer!” complained Randolph, disgustedly. “But I suppose we had to.”
The day after the arrival at the fort the Taos men, including Kit Carson and Lucien Maxwell, started for home, southward; the Frémont party were to continue on, eastward, down the Platte, by the Oregon Trail, for Missouri; but at the parting it was understood that the next spring, after the lieutenant had made his report to the government, he was coming out with another expedition to explore along the Oregon Trail west of the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, and that he would want Kit Carson again.
Down to old Taos rode the Carson trappers, home bent; and home they were, ere the middle of September. Taos was glad to see them and to hear their tales.
[136]
Sol Silver and his party were still out, of course, to remain until the fall fur hunt. There was the fall fur hunt for all, and the fall buffalo hunt to supply Bent’s Fort with winter meat. Then might the Carson men settle to a winter at Taos.
It proved to be a cold and snowy winter; but right in the midst of it, or about Christmas time, arrived excitement: three strangers, ragged and frost-bitten and weary, reduced almost to eating their buckskin clothing. A squad of Taos trappers brought them in from camp in the mountains.
One of the visitors was a half-breed guide from the trading post of Fort Uncompahgre, across near to the Grand River. Another was a tall, lean, roughly bearded man, with hair peculiarly marked in white and brown, deeply-set dark-blue eyes and large mouth. This was Dr. Marcus Whitman. The third was also a bearded man, broad-shouldered, light-blue eyed, with high forehead and calm mien. This was Mr. A. L. Lovejoy.
Dr. Whitman was a missionary doctor; he had been at the Green River trapper rendezvous in 1835, on his way west; and in 1836 he had led a party of missionaries including his bride and another woman (first white women to cross the Rockies, they) from the Missouri to the mission settlements of Oregon. Mr. Lovejoy had been among those American colonists who last spring, under Sub-Indian Agent Dr. White, had made[137] the wagon-wheel tracks seen by the Frémont company, up the Platte and the Sweetwater, over the South Pass, and on.
Now upon desperate mid-winter journey across continent from coast to coast was hurrying Dr. Whitman, with his brave companions, to appeal for more Americans in Oregon where the British also claimed the country. The little party had cut south, from Fort Uintah of present northeastern Utah, down through the mountains of present central Colorado, aiming for Santa Fé and for Taos, to evade the plains Indians and the deep snows. But the latter they had not evaded, and they nearly had perished miserably. Once they had swum, horses and all, an ice-encrusted river. And they had been obliged to kill their faithful dog and eat him.
Dr. Whitman and Mr. Lovejoy had left the mission headquarters on the Columbia October 3; now it was the middle of December; after a couple of weeks’ stay at Taos, to gain strength, they pushed on, for Bent’s Fort and the Santa Fé trail to Missouri.
The next event at Taos was the marriage of Kit Carson, on February of this new year 1843, to the Se?orita Josefa Jaramillo, only sixteen, much younger than he. An exceedingly handsome girl was the Se?orita Josefa, with clear creamy skin and great black eyes and dazzling teeth. The occasion was celebrated by a series of feasts and dances which lasted through several days and nights. At the close everybody[138] was worn out, so popular were Kit and his girlish bride.
In March Sol Silver took a party of trappers upon the regulation beaver hunt. The other Carson men remained in Taos, waiting.
“Wall, boy,” remarked Kit, to Oliver, when the members of the Silver party were being told off, “which would you rather do—go up among the Blackfeet, with Sol, or out among the Chinooks, with Frémont?”
“Frémont, and you,” promptly answered Oliver; and Kit Carson laughed.
“You’re liable to find it the hard trail o’ the two,” he commented, dryly.
The spring waxed and waned, and came no word from Lieutenant Frémont, save the word that his report had been made to Congress, had spoken well of the Indian Country and of the trail through it, and that there was much talk of a big emigration, over the trail, this year, for Oregon.
Finally, about the middle of June, arrived a message from Kansas Landing, on the Missouri frontier, that the second exploring expedition of Lieutenant John Charles Frémont had started, and that the rendezvous was to be Fort St. Vrain. “White Head,” or Thomas Fitzpatrick the famous mountain-man, was the guide, and Lucien Maxwell was accompanying as far as St. Vrain, on his way to Taos.
It did not take long for the Carson party to mount[139] and ride for Bent’s, thence to proceed on northward for St. Vrain, 200 miles. But at Bent’s was it learned that Lucien Maxwell had hastened south, from St. Vrain, to obtain mules in Taos, for the lieutenant; and that the lieutenant and a party were following, along the foothills, to meet the mules.
Now, at this time Texas was striving to be free from all claims of Mexico, and armed Texans had been invading New Mexico and threatening Santa Fé and Santa Fé caravans. This had caused the Mexican government to forbid intercourse back and forth across the border between New Mexico and foreigners; and the chance that Lieutenant Frémont might secure mules from Taos was slim. At Bent’s Kit Carson himself turned off, up the Arkansas, to meet the lieutenant and to warn him of conditions.
He met him at the little settlement of the Pueblo, about seventy miles from the post. The town is to-day Pueblo, Colorado. Lieutenant Frémont immediately sent Kit back to Bent’s, with a request that the fort supply some mules, if possible.
Meanwhile the Carson men, under Ike Chamberlain, rode on to St. Vrain.
Fort St. Vrain was situated opposite where the St. Vrain creek empties into the South Platte River, not far from the present Colorado town of Greeley. It was built of adobe clay bricks, and was commanded by Mr. Marcelin St. Vrain, younger brother of the Ceran St. Vrain who formed one in the partnership[140] Bent, St. Vrain & Co., of the Santa Fé Trail. A slim, boyish man was Marcelin St. Vrain, with black hair, black eyes and black whiskers. His wife was a Sioux girl.
The fort was out on the plains, a short distance from the foothills. Here awaiting the return of the lieutenant from his side trip up the South Platte and down to the Arkansas was Thomas Fitzpatrick with a detachment of twenty-five of the Frémont men.
A ruddy-faced, rather heavy-set man was Thomas Fitzpatrick, with thick hair turned snow white and with his left hand crippled. A severe adventure, in the summer of 1832, with Blackfeet Indians who had chased him and forced him to hide in a cave for three days, had whitened his hair; and the bursting of his rifle had crippled his hand. The Indians called him not only “White Head” but also “Bad Hand” and “Broken Hand.”
He and Ike and the other Taos trappers greeted each other tumultuously, for all knew and respected Thomas Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick had brought the wagons and the heavy baggage. He was waiting and resting the animals. Lieute............