The Indians could not have chosen a more delightful spot for their encampment and their feast.  Neither could they have selected a spot more favorable for the unseen approach of the pursuers.  But the savages, having accomplished more than a hundred miles, deemed themselves perfectly safe.

Carson carefully reconnoitred the position, gave minute directions to his men, and they all, with the noiseless, stealthy movement of the panther, worked their way along until they were within rifle distance of their foes.  Every man selected his victim and took deliberate aim.  The signal was given.  The discharge was simultaneous.  Twelve bullets struck twelve warriors.  Most of them dropped instantly dead.  Almost with the rapidity of thought the rifles were loaded, and the little band rushed upon the bewildered, terror-stricken, bleeding savages.  The Indians scattered in every direction.  Eight were killed outright.  Carson had no love of slaughter.  Many more, in their flight, might have been struck by the bullet; but they were allowed to escape.  All the horses were recovered excepting the six which the Indians had killed.

Great was the rejoicing in the camp when the victorious party returned so abundantly successful.  One of the annalists of this extraordinary man speaking of the enterprise, very truthfully writes: 

“Carson, though at that day a youth in years and experience, had risen rapidly in the estimation of all, and had excited the admiration and enlisted the confidence of the entire band.  When called upon to add his counsel, concerning any doubtful enterprise, his masterly foresight and shrewdness, as well as clearness in attending to details, gave him willing auditors.

“But it was the modest deportment he invariably wore, which won for him the love of his associates.  Kit Carson’s power in quickly conceiving the safest plan of action in difficult emergencies, and his bravery, which in his youth, sometimes amounted to rashness, caused his companions to follow his leadership.  His courage, promptitude, self-reliance, caution, sympathy and care for the wounded, marked him at once as the master mind.  Like the great Napoleon, when he joined the army for his first campaign, he was a hero, in spite of his youth, among men grown grey with experience.”

The highest style of manhood, the most attractive character is that in which the mildness and the delicacy of the woman is combined with the energy and the fearlessness of the man.  In Kit Carson we witness a wonderful combination of these two qualities.  An acquaintance of the writer, who spent many years of his early life roving through the wilderness of the far West, and who had often met Kit Carson, said he never heard an oath from his lips.  Even the rude and profane trappers around him could appreciate the superior dignity of such a character.