Kit Carson's own story of his life

Christopher Carson was apprenticed to a saddle-maker when "being anxious to travel for the purpose of seeing different countries, I concluded to join the first party for the Rocky Mountains." In 1826 he ran away and joined a party westward bound, and spent many years scouting, trapping, and hunting. He describes travelling in California in 1830:"We found signs of trappers on the San Joaquin. We followed their trail and, in a few days, overtook the party and found them to be of the Hudson Bay Company. They were sixty men strong, commanded by Peter Ogden. We trapped down the San Joaquin and its tributaries and found but little beaver, but game plenty, elk, deer, and antelope in thousands."His encompassing knowledge of the West led to his career as a guide and in the 1840's he was employed by James Fremont. In typical abbreviated fashion Carson packs a several month journey from (what is now) Utah to Wyoming to Washington into a single paragraph:"We now took up Bear River till we got above the Lake. Then crossed to and took up Malade, thence to Fort Hall where we met Fitzpatrick and party. Fremont from here took his party and proceeded in advance. Fitzpatrick keeping in rear some eigh