Lieutenant Fremont’s answer indicated his satisfaction in making the acquaintance which Kit Carson had offered him and that he would make inquiries concerning his capabilities of performing the duty for which he offered himself.

The inquiries which the then lieutenant instituted, or, at least, may be supposed to have instituted, must have been favorable; for, soon afterwards, Kit Carson was engaged by Colonel Fremont to act as guide to his first exploring expedition at a salary of one hundred dollars per month.  Upon arriving in Kansas the party prepared for a long and dangerous journey which lay before them.  The objects of this expedition was to survey the South Pass, and take the altitude of the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains, besides gathering all the collateral information which they could.  The party had been chiefly collected in St. Louis.  It consisted of twenty-two Creole and Canadian voyageurs; Mr. Charles Preuss, a native of Germany, whose education rendered him a master in the art of topographical sketching, and, towards whom, Colonel Fremont has always extended high and just encomium; Henry Brant, a son of Colonel J.H.  Brant, of St. Louis, nineteen years of age; young Randolph Benton, a son of Colonel Benton, twelve years of age; Mr. L. Maxwell, a mountaineer engaged as the hunter of the party; and finally, Kit Carson, as guide, making, including the commander of the Expedition, twenty-eight souls.  On the 10th day of June, 1842, the party commenced their march.  The daily routine usually observed on the march was as follows: 

At daybreak the camp was aroused, the animals led out and turned loose to graze; breakfast about six o’clock, immediately after which, the line of march was resumed; at noon there was a halt of one or two hours; the march was then again resumed and kept up until within an hour or so of sunset, when the order was usually given to encamp; the tents were then pitched, horses hobbled and turned loose to graze and the cooks prepared supper.  At night all the animals were brought in and picketed, carts set for defence and guard mounted.

[Illustration:  BUFFALO HUNT.—­PAGE 161.]

The party had only accomplished a few miles of the march when they fell in with the buffalo.  Before we pursue the narrative of Kit Carson’s life we must redeem our promise and allow Col.  Fremont to describe his own impressions in his first Buffalo Hunt, in which Kit Carson and Mr. L. Maxwell were his companions and guides.  Col.  Fremont says: 

“A few miles brought us into the midst of the buffalo, swarming in immense numbers over the plains, where they had left scarcely a blade of grass standing.  Mr. Preuss, who was sketching at a little distance in the rear, had at first noted them as large groves of timber.  In the sight of such a mass of life, the traveler feels a strange emotion of grandeur.  We had heard from a distance a dull and confused murmuring, and, when we came in view of their dark masses, there