As the reader can now easily compute, sixteen years had elapsed since Kit Carson commenced his exploits in the Rocky Mountains.  During this long period, as frequently as once every year, he had sat down to a meal consisting of bread, vegetables, meat, coffee, tea, and sugar.  When dining thus sumptuously, he considered himself as greatly favored with luxuries of the rarest grade.  Few men can say, with Kit Carson, “During sixteen years, my rifle furnished nearly every particle of food upon which I lived.”  Fewer can say with equal truth, that “For many consecutive years, I never slept under the roof of a house, or gazed upon the face of a white woman.”

It was after such an experience as we have endeavored to paint by the simple tale of his life thus far, that Kit Carson longed, once more, to look upon and mingle with civilized people.  For some time before he determined to visit the United States, this desire had taken possession of his mind and had been growing stronger.  The traders of the Fort were accustomed, yearly, to send into the States a train of wagons, for the purpose of transporting their goods.  The opportunity, therefore, presented for Kit Carson to gratify his wish.  In the spring of 1842, one of these caravans started with which Kit Carson traveled as a supernumerary.  When it arrived within the boundary lines of the State of Missouri, he parted from his compagnons de voyage and went in quest of his relatives and friends, whom, now, he had not seen for over sixteen years.  The scenes of his boyhood days, he found to be magically changed.  New faces met him on all sides.  The old log-cabin where his father and mother had resided was deserted and its dilapidated walls were crumbling with decay.  The once happy inmates were scattered over the face of the earth while many of their voices were hushed in death.  Kit Carson felt himself a stranger in a strange land—­the strong man wept.  His soul could not brook either the change or the ways of the people.  While he failed not to receive kindness and hospitality, to which his name alone was a sufficient passport among the noble-hearted Missourians, nevertheless, he had fully allayed his curiosity, and, as soon as possible, bid adieu to these unpleasant recollections.  He bent his steps towards St. Louis.  In this city he remained ten days; and, as it was the first time since he had reached manhood that he had viewed a town of any magnitude, he was greatly interested.  But, ten days of sight-seeing wearied him.  He resolved to return to his mountain home where he could breathe the pure air of heaven and where manners and customs conformed to his wild life and were more congenial to his tastes.  He engaged passage upon the first steamboat which was bound up the Missouri River.