[Footnote 1:  This disease has probably been the worst enemy with which the red man of America has had to contend.  By terrible experience he has become familiarized with its ravages, and has resorted to the most desperate remedies for its cure.  Among many tribes, the afflicted are obliged to form camps by themselves; and, thus left alone, they die by scores.  One of their favorite remedies, when the scourge first makes its appearance, is to plunge into the nearest river, by which they think to purify themselves.  This course, however, in reality, tends to shorten their existence.  When the small pox rages among the Aborigines, a most unenviable position is held by their “Medicine Man.”  He is obliged to give a strict account of himself; and, if so unfortunate as to lose a chief, or other great personage, is sure to pay the penalty by parting with his own life.  The duties of the “Medicine Man” among the Indians are so mixed up with witchcraft and jugglery, so filled with the pretence of savage quackery, so completely rude and unfounded as to principle, that it is impossible to define the practice for any useful end.  About five years since, a young gentleman of scientific habits, who was attached to an exploring party, accidentally became separated from his companions.  In his wanderings, he fell in with a band of hostile Sioux Indians, who would quickly have dispatched him, had he not succeeded immediately in convincing them of his wonderful powers.  It so happened that this gentleman was well informed in the theory of vaccination, and it struck him that by impressing on the savages his skill, he might extricate himself.  By the aid of signs, a lancet and some virus, he set himself to work, and soon saw that he had gained a reputation which saved him his scalp.  He first vaccinated his own arm, after which all of the Indians present solicited his magic touch, to save them from the loathsome disease.  The result was, that he found he had enlisted himself in an active practice.  After a few days, the Indians were delighted with the results, and began to look upon their prisoner as possessed of superhuman knowledge.  They feared to do him injury, and finally resolved to let him go; of which privilege, it is almost unnecessary to say, he was delighted to avail himself, and was not long in finding his friends.]

The incidents which enliven and add interest to the historic page, have proved of spontaneous and vigorous growth in the new settlements of America.  Nearly every book which deals with the early planting and progress of the American colonists and pioneers, contains full, and frequently glowing, descriptions of exploits in the forest; strifes of the hunter; fights with the savages; fearful and terrible surprises of lurking warriors, as they arouse the brave settler and his family from their midnight dreams by the wild, death-announcing war-whoop; hair-breadth escapes from the larger kinds of game, boldly bearded in their lair; the manly courage which never yields, but surmounts every obstacle presented by the unbroken and boundless forest; all these are subjects and facts which have already so many counterparts in book-thought, accessible to the general reader, that their details may be safely omitted during the boyhood days of young Carson.  It is better, therefore, to pass over the youthful period of his eventful life, until he began to ripen into manhood.