He saw himself in the possession of fine lands, well watered and well timbered.  Also plenty which was ready for the plow.  It was almost a farm, made to order by the most perfect Workman.  The soil, unsurpassed in richness and fertility, was a safe and sure depository for his seeds, telling him, in its silent, but unmistakable language, of the rich harvest in store for him.  His stock was the best which heart could wish; and last, but with him not least, he was within a stone’s throw of splendid hunting grounds, which, to his unerring rifle, as the reader has already seen, proved as safe an assistant, as would have been a Wall street bank with a large credit side to his account.

We have here a picture of Kit Carson enjoying the rewards of a home congenial to his taste and knowledge of life, while around him are gathered the objects which his manly soul had learned to love and live for.  The painting is one which we find beautiful to the sight and which is rich in its lessons of life.  But these deductions must be left for the sensitive and honest hearted imagination to draw.  It is not fitting to add them to these pages, however truthful they may be, until the last sad rites which are measured out to all, shall have been performed for the brave man of whom we write, and his noble soul shall have winged its flight to the happier hunting grounds of eternity.

The duties of farming and hunting were only once interrupted during the summer which Kit Carson thus enjoyed with his family.  The exploit which called him, on this occasion, from his home, was caused by an effort to save the lives of two well known traders.  To accomplish this, he assumed the character and duties of a detective police officer.  The circumstances of the case were as follows.

An American, by the name of Fox, had organized a party to accompany as a guard over the plains, and, while professedly engaged in this duty, to murder Messrs. Brevoort and Weatherhead, two gentlemen who were traveling into the United States, as the rascal and party supposed, with a large sum of money which they expected to expend in the purchase of goods to be used for trading purposes.  Fox played his part so well that when he offered himself and men as an escort, the offer was accepted by the intended and unsuspicious victims, as if it had been a mark of particular favor.  Before the route was entered upon, Fox visited Taos for the purpose of enlisting among his band of desperadoes, a fellow who resided in that town.  He was a person who bore a very bad character, but for some reason, which has never transpired, he refused to go; yet, proving true as a wicked confidant, he waited until he thought his friend Fox was sufficiently advanced on the road to accomplish his hellish purposes without any chance of his being overtaken and arrested.  He then saw fit to divulge the plot.

Every new country is the favorite place of resort for desperadoes and rascals of all grades, who cannot live in their native districts on account of their many crimes.