Early in the morning, at the sound of the bugle, all sprang from their couches which nature had spread, and they spent no more time at their toilet than did the horse or the cow.  After a hurried breakfast they commenced their march.  Generally an abundance of game was found on the way.  The animals always walked slowly along, being never put to the trot.

At noon the leader endeavored to find some spot near a running stream or a spring, where the animals could find pasture.  The resting for a couple of hours gave them time for their dinner, which they had mainly picked up by the way.

An hour or two before sundown the camping ground was selected, the animals were tethered, often in luxuriant grass, and the hardy pioneers, by no means immoderately fatigued by the day’s journey, having eaten their supper, which a good appetite rendered sumptuous, spent the time till sleep closed their eyelids in telling stories and singing songs.  A very careful guard was set, and the adventurers enjoyed sound sleep till, with the dawn, the bugle call again summoned them.  Under ordinary circumstances hardy men of a roving turn of mind, found very great attractions in this adventurous life.  They were by no means willing to exchange its excitements for the monotonous labors of the field or the shop.

CHAPTER II.

Life in the Wilderness.

A Surgical Operation.—­A Winter with Kin Cade.—­Study of the Languages and Geography.—­Return towards Missouri.—­Engagement with a new Company and Strange Adventures.—­The Rattlesnake.—­Anecdote of Kit Carson.—­The Sahara.—­New Engagements.—­Trip to El Paso.—­Trapping and Hunting.—­Prairie Scenery.—­The Trapper’s Outfit.—­Night Encampment.—­Testimony of an Amateur Hunter.

The company of traders which Kit had joined enjoyed, on the whole, a prosperous expedition.  They met with no hostile Indians and, with one exception, encountered nothing which they could deem a hardship.  There was one exception, which most persons would deem a terrible one.  The accidental discharge of a gun, incautiously handled, shattered a man’s arm, shivering the bone to splinters.  The arm rapidly grew inflamed, became terribly painful, and must be amputated or the life lost.  There was no one in the party who knew anything of surgery.  But they had a razor, a handsaw and a bar of iron.

It shows the estimation in which the firm, gentle, and yet almost womanly Kit Carson was held, that he was chosen to perform the operation.  Two others were to assist him.  The sufferer took his seat, and was held firmly, that in his anguish his struggles might not interfere with the progress of the knife.  This boy of but eighteen years then, with great apparent coolness, undertook this formidable act of surgery.

He bound a ligature around the arm very tightly, to arrest, as far as possible the flow of blood.  With the razor he cut through the quivering muscles, tendons and nerves.  With the handsaw he severed the bone.  With the bar of iron, at almost a white heat, he cauterized the wound.  The cruel operation was successful.  And the patient, under the influence of the pure mountain air, found his wound almost healed before he reached Santa Fe.