“Finding here an abundance of grass, we remained the following day for the benefit of our animals.  The valley was probably fifteen miles in length, with a variable width of two or three miles.  It was a delightful spot.  Wild plants grew in profusion, many-hued flowers studded its surface, and silvery streams, bordered by luxuriant verdure and shrubs, were winding through it.  On both sides the mountains towered up by continuous elevations of several thousand feet, exhibiting a succession of rich vegetation, and then craggy and sterile cliffs, capped by virgin snow, the whole forming a landscape of rare combinations of the beautiful and sublime.”

After a short rest the trappers continued their journey slowly, setting their traps on the San Joaquin and its tributaries.  Pretty soon, much to their surprise, they saw indications that there was another band trapping on the same streams.  In a short time they met, and it was found that the other party belonged to the Hudson Bay Company, and was commanded by Peter Ogden.

It is pleasant to record that the two parties, instead of fighting each other as rivals, cordially fraternized.  For several weeks they trapped near together, often meeting and ever interchanging the courtesies of brotherly kindness.  These men were from Canada.  They were veterans in the profession of hunting and trapping, having long been in the employment of the Hudson Bay Company, and having served a regular apprenticeship to prepare them for their difficult and arduous employment.  Here again the peculiarity of Kit Carson’s character was developed.  Instead of assuming that he knew all that was to be known about the wilderness, and the business in which he was engaged, he lost no opportunity of acquiring all the information he could from these strangers.  He questioned them very carefully, and his experience was such as to enable him to ask just such questions as were most important.

There is scarcely a man in America who has not heard the name of Kit Carson.  No man can make his name known among the forty millions of this continent, unless there be something extraordinary in his character and achievements.  Kit Carson was an extraordinary character.  His wide-spread fame was not the result of accident.  His achievements were not merely impulsive movements.  He was a man of pure mind, of high morality, and intensely devoted to the life-work which he had chosen.  His studies during the winter in the cabin of Kin Cade, had made him a proficient in the colloquial Spanish language.  This proved to him an invaluable acquisition.  He had also gathered and stored away in his retentive memory all that this veteran ranger of the woods could communicate respecting the geography of the Far West, the difficulties to be encountered and the mode of surmounting them.  And now he was learning everything that could be learned from these Canadian boatmen and rangers.

Already young Carson had attained eminence.  It was often said, “No matter what happens, Kit Carson always knows at the moment exactly what is best to be done.”