But the Indians still hovered around in such energetic and persevering hostility, that not a trapper could leave the camp without danger of falling into an ambuscade.  The Indians avoided any decisive conflict, but their war-whoops and yells of defiance, like the howlings of wolves, could be heard, by day and by night, in the forests all around them.  Unless the traps were carefully guarded, they were sure to be stolen.  Under these circumstances there was no possibility of trapping with any hope of success.  Once before the indomitable Indians had driven the trappers from their country.  And now again it was deemed necessary to withdraw from their haunts.

To the trappers this was a very humiliating necessity.  A council was held and it was decided to abandon the region and to direct their steps about two hundred miles, in a northeasterly direction, to the north fork of the Missouri river.  The journey was soon accomplished without adventure.  The trappers, far removed from their inveterate foes, vigorously commenced operations.  They had their central camp.  In small parties they followed up and down the majestic stream, and pursued the windings of the brooks flowing into it.  They generally went in parties of two or three.

Wherever night found them, whether with cloudless skies or raging storm, it mattered not, the work of an hour with their hatchets, reared for them a sheltering camp.  Before it blazed the ever-cheerful, illuminating fire.  Rich viands of the choicest game smoked upon the embers, and the hunters, reclining upon their couches of blankets or furs, exulted in the luxurious indulgence of a hunter’s life.  With all the hardships to which one is exposed in such adventures, there is a charm accompanying them which words cannot easily describe.  It warms the blood of one sitting upon the carpeted floor in his well-furnished parlor to send his imagination back to those scenes.

Men of little book culture, and with but slight acquaintance with the elegancies of polished life, have often a high appreciation of the beauties and the sublimities of nature.  Think of such a man as Kit Carson, with his native delicacy of mind; a delicacy which never allowed him to use a profane word, to indulge in intoxicating drinks, to be guilty of an impure action; a man who enjoyed, above all things else, the communings of his own spirit with the silence, the solitude, the grandeur, with which God has invested the illimitable wilderness; think of such a man in the midst of such scenes as we are now describing.

It is the hour of midnight.  His camp is in one of the wildest ravines of the Rocky mountains.  A dense and gloomy forest covers the hillsides.  A mountain torrent, with its voice of many waters, flows on its way but a few yards beyond the open front of his camp.  A brilliant fire illumines the wild scene for a few rods around, while all beyond is impenetrable darkness.  His hardy mule, accustomed to all weathers, is browsing near by.  The floor of his camp, spread with buffalo robes, looks warm and inviting.  His two comrades are soundly asleep with their rifles on their arms, ready at the slightest alarm to spring to their feet prepared for battle.