Through the country we have thus briefly described, Carson and his men had trapped taking some small game, intending to return late in the season when the cold of this high altitude, with the sun low, was becoming terribly severe, while the grass was dead, and the birds of passage had all departed. Their prospects were cheerless and unpromising, nor were they at all improved after they left the Humboldt; for their route lay through an artemisia desert, varied only by an occasional little valley, where springs of water in the early season had induced the growth of grass.

On reaching Goose Creek, they found it frozen, so that there was no possibility of finding even roots, to satisfy their hunger. Though to-day this is the trail of California emigration, with plenty of grass, for a great portion of the way, in its season; now all was desolate, and inured as they were to hardship, Carson's men had never before suffered so much from hunger, nor did their animals fare much better. Capt. McCoy had taken with him all not needed by Carson's party, because he could give them food, and it was fortunate for them he had adopted this course.

The magnificent mountain scenery on the route could scarcely excite admiration or remark from this company of hungry, toil-worn men; even that unique exhibition of nature's improvised ideality, done in stone—pyramid circle—with its pagodas, temples, obelisks, and altars, within a curiously wrought rock wall, they only wished were the adobe walls and houses of Fort Hall. However, nothing daunted by the dreary prospect before them, they here bled their horses, and drank the precious draught, well knowing they were taking the wind from the sails upon which they must rely to waft them into port, if they ever reached it.

The next day, they were meditating the slaughter of one of their horses, when a party of Snake Indians fortunately came in sight. They had been out on the war trail, and returning, had little food, but Carson managed to purchase a fat horse, which they killed at once, and thus managed to live luxuriously till they reached the fort, able now to walk and give the horses the advantage of their diet.

Epicureans of civilization, when the squeamishness of an appetite, perverted by too delicate fare, is invited to such a repast, may rest assured that they know not the satisfaction such fare afforded to Kit Carson and his party. Horse beef was sweeter food to these starving men, than epicures had ever tasted.

After recruiting for a few days at the fort, and learning that there were large herds of the game, which they gloried most in hunting, the buffalo, near by, Carson and his party started for the stream on which they could be found, and were not long in discovering a large herd of fine fat buffalo. Stretching lines on which to hang the strips, they killed, and dressed, and cut; and soon had dried all the meat their animals could carry, when they returned to the fort.

Three days before reaching the fort, a party of Blackfeet Indians were again upon their trail, and watching for their return.

On the third morning after their arrival, just as day dawned, two of the Indians came past their camp to the corral of the fort in which their animals were confined, let down the bars and drove them all away; the sentinel thinking the Indians were men of his party who had come to relieve his watch, had gone into camp and was soundly sleeping before the animals were missed. By this time the Indians had driven them many miles away, and as a similar ruse had been played upon the people at the fort a few days before, by which all their animals were run off, there was no possibility of giving chase.

Of course there was now no alternative but to wait the return of Capt. McCoy from Walla Walla, which he did in about four weeks, bringing animals enough to supply Carson and his party, besides, the men at the fort, which had been obtained of the Kiowas, or Kaious Indians, in Oregon. These Indians range between the Cascade and the Rocky Mountains, in what is now the eastern portion of Washington and Oregon Territories, living by the chase, and owning immense herds of horses, of which the chief of this tribe owned ten thousand. In this same locality the Indian bands reported by the parties of trappers in the American Fur Company, had abundance of horses, with which they hunted deer, "ringing or surrounding them, and running them down in a circle." But while antelope, and elk, and deer, as well as beaver, were abundant, their locality was not frequented by the buffalo, its ranges being further toward the south and west.

Many suppose that buffalo never existed west of the Rocky Mountains; but to attempt a correction of this impression with our readers, is no longer necessary, as we have seen Carson killing them on the Salmon River, on the Green River, and lastly, in the valley of a stream that flows into the Salmon.

From Baird's General Repository, published in 1857, we quote,

"It will perhaps excite surprise that I include the buffalo in the fauna of the Pacific States, as it is common to imagine that the buffalo has always been confined to the Atlantic slopes, because it does not now extend beyond the Rocky mountains. This is not true. They once abounded on the Pacific."

This animal has not been found in California nor in Oregon, west of the Cascade mountains, within the present generation of men, and the limit of its ranges, narrowing every year, is now far this side of the Rocky Mountains. Really a wild animal, incapable of being domesticated, as the country is more and more traversed, he retires—is killed by thousands by the hunter—and seems destined, as really as the Indian race, to become extinct. Could either be induced to adopt the modes of life which residence among the races of civilized men requires, their existence might be prolonged perhaps for centuries, but there seems to be no care, on the part of anybody who has the power, to preserve either the Indian or the buffalo as a distinct race of man, and quadruped.

A writer who reports his trip from California in the summer of '57, by Humboldt River and Fort Laramie, says:

"I watched for buffalo, expecting to see them in the valleys of the streams, the head-waters of the Platte. But the hundred miles upon the Sweet-water revealed no buffalo; upon the North Platte above Laramie there were none, and on to Fort Kearney we looked in vain for this noble game. If we had been a wagon party, and therefore confined to the road, this would not have surprised us, as the immense emigration to California first, to Salt Lake next, and the United States army following, might be supposed to have driven them away. Then, too, Col. Sumner had been through, and with a war party of three hundred mounted riflemen, had followed the Cheyennes from Fort Laramie south to the head-waters of the Arkansas. But we frequently left the road for days together, in pursuit of game and the finer scenery of the immediate river valley, or the hills as it happened.

"Only until three days after passing Fort Kearney, did the glad sight greet us.

"In the broad bottom—ten miles at least between the hills that shut in the river valley—they were scattered thickly and quietly grazing.

"In two hours after coming in sight of them, we pitched our camp upon the river bank, and were soon prepared for the hunt. Though ten thousand were in sight, we had not yet approached within half a mile of one, so shy are they, moving off when we came in sight.

"The Platte was three quarters of a mile wide where we were camped, and above and below us were numerous trails running from the river back into the hills. These were like the cow-paths running to a spring in a New England pasture. We camped about three o'clock, and soon after the buffalo upon one side of the stream commenced moving towards the river by these paths, and following each other close, to wade across it in a continuous line by half a dozen paths in sight from where we were. These moving lines of huge animals were continued till slumber closed our eyes, at ten o'clock in the evening, and we knew not how much longer.

"Having no fresh animals, and only one that had not made the distance from the other side the Sierra Nevada within the last fifty days, we could not hunt by the chase. Accordingly, with nicely loaded double barrelled rifle, we crept through the under-brush that lined the bank above us, and came near a line of buffalo crossing the river, and choosing our opportunity, as the animal pauses from the brisk trot before plunging into the stream, we were able to take good aim, and soon had lodged a ball in the breast of a fine cow, who with a bound leaped into the water, but was not able to proceed, nor needed the other shot which we lodged in the brain, to float her down the stream.

"Calling help, we had her dressed directly, and the nicest steaks upon the coals already kindled at the camp, and found them exceedingly delicious—of course more so from the fact that we had taken it. Others of the party came in without success; some had shot at a buffalo, others had got a sight of one, and at two of the crossings the line was broken temporarily by an unsuccessful attempt to kill an animal, but without hurting him. Most of us had no practice with this kind of game, though they had killed grouse, and some of them had shot antelope during our journey. But now their guns would not go off, or they shot too high, or could not get near enough. Just at dark, however, the old gentleman came in for help. His French rifle—a gun of Revolutionary times—had done execution, and a big bull was the prize he announced. We invited him to our prepared repast, but 'no! he would sup to-night upon his own game, he thanked us.' Of course he had the tongue from the animal he killed, nor were the tender-loin and other choice bits bad eating, and taking the tongue ourself, with the rest of the party, (of ten,) we managed to carry away in the morning nearly all of the cow that we had not already eaten.

"All night long the bellowing from the other side the river greeted our tired senses. The situation was novel, and really in imagination, quite terrific. Would they return across the river and stampede our animals? We got a little sleep before midnight, but not much later.

"In the morning the buffalo were indeed returning in the style they went, but as we rode on over their track, the lines were always broken, and the animals scattered before we could approach them, and only once did we come within pistol shot of any of them; nor did the rest of the party do any better.

"Of course we might have done it had we made this our business; but we were hastening from the El Dorado, after a four years' absence from our homes. So much for our extemporised buffalo hunting. In twenty-four hours after striking them, we had passed the buffalo, and saw no more of them. As we estimated it, we had seen in that time at least fifty thousand; we had crossed the trail of fifteen lines of them crossing the river after we left camp this morning."

We have quoted this to show the way in which travelers—emigrants now—meet the buffalo. Sometimes a huge drove of them overrun an emigrant party; but this seldom occurs, nor do parties often see more of them than did the one we have just presented, though usually they see them for a longer time. So much have the times changed since Carson was a trapper.