With fresh animals, and men well fed and rested, McCoy and Carson and all their party soon started from Fort Hall, for the rendezvous again upon Green River, where they were detained some weeks for the arrival of other parties, enjoying as they best might the occasion, and preparing for future operations.

A party of an hundred was here organized, with Mr. Fontenelle and Carson for its leaders, to trap upon the Yellowstone, and the head waters of the Missouri. It was known that they would probably meet the Blackfeet in whose grounds they were going, and it was therefore arranged, that, while fifty were to trap and furnish the food for the party, the remainder should be assigned to guard the camp and cook. There was no disinclination on the part of any to another meeting with the Blackfeet, so often had they troubled members of the party, especially Carson, who, while he could be magnanimous towards an enemy, would not turn aside from his course, if able to cope with him; and now he was in a company which justly felt itself strong enough to punish the "thieving Blackfeet," as they spoke of them, he was anxious to pay off some old scores.

They saw nothing, however, of these Indians; but afterwards learned that the small-pox had raged terribly among them, and that they had kept themselves retired in mountain valleys, oppressed with fear and severe disease.

The winter's encampment was made in this region, and a party of Crow Indians which was with them, camped at a little distance, on the same stream. Here they had secured an abundance of meat, and passed the severe weather with a variety of amusements in which the Indians joined them in their lodges, made of buffalo hides. These lodges, very good substitutes for houses, are made in the form of a cone, spread by the means of poles spreading from a common centre, where there was a hole at the top for the passage of the smoke. These were often twenty feet in height, and as many feet in diameter, where they were pinned to the ground with stakes. In a large village the Indians often had one lodge large enough to hold fifty persons, and within were performed their war dances around a fire made in the centre. During the palmy days of the British Fur Company, in a lodge like this only made, instead, of birch-bark, Irving says the Indians of the north held their "primitive fairs," outside the city of Montreal, where they disposed of their furs.

There was one drawback upon conviviality for this party, in the extreme difficulty of getting food for their animals; for the food and fuel so abundant for themselves did not suffice for their horses. Snow covered the ground, and the trappers were obliged to gather willow twigs, and strip the bark from cottonwood trees, in order to keep them alive. The inner bark of the cottonwood is eaten by the Indians when reduced to extreme want. Beside, the cold brought the buffalo down upon them in large herds, to share the nourishment they had provided for their horses.

Spring at length opened, and gladly they again commenced trapping; first on the Yellowstone, and soon on the head waters of the Missouri, where they learned that the Blackfeet were recovered from the sickness of last year, which had not been so severe as it was reported, and that they were still anxious and in condition for a fight, and were encamped not far from their present trapping grounds.

Carson and five men went forward in advance "to reconnoitre," and found the village preparing to remove, having learned of the presence of the trappers. Hurrying back, a party of forty-three was selected from the whole, and they unanimously selected Carson to lead them, and leaving the rest to move on with the baggage, and aid them if it should be necessary when they should come up with the Indians, they hastened forward, eager for a battle.

Carson and his command were not long in overtaking the Indians, and dashing among them, at the first fire killed ten of their braves, but the Indians rallied, and retreated in good order. The white men were in fine spirits, and followed up their first attack with deadly result for three full hours, the Indians making scarce any resistance. Now their firing became less animated as their ammunition was getting low, and they had to use it with extreme caution. The Indians, suspecting this from the slackness of their fire, rallied, and with a tremendous whoop turned upon their enemies.

Now Carson and his company could use their small arms, which produced a terrible effect, and which enabled them again to drive back the Indians. They rallied yet again, and charged with so much power, and in such numbers, they forced the trappers to retreat.

During this engagement, the horse of one of the mountaineers was killed, and fell with his whole weight upon his rider. Carson saw the condition of the man, with six warriors rushing to take his scalp, and reached the spot in time to save his friend. Leaping from the saddle, he placed himself before his fallen companion, shouting at the same time for his men to rally around him, and with deadly aim from his rifle, shot down the foremost warrior.

The trappers now rallied about Carson, and the remaining five warriors retired, without the scalp of their fallen foe. Only two of them reached a place of safety; for the well aimed fire of the trappers leveled them with the earth.

Carson's horse was loose, and as his comrade was safe, he mounted behind one of his men, and rode back to the ranks, while, by general impulse, the firing upon both sides ceased. His horse was captured and restored to him, but each party, now thoroughly exhausted, seemed to wait for the other to renew the attack. While resting in this attitude, the other division of the trappers came in sight, but the Indians, showing no fear, posted themselves among the rocks at some distance from the scene of the last skirmish, and coolly waited for their adversaries. Exhausted ammunition had been the cause of the retreat of Carson and his force, but now with a renewed supply, and an addition of fresh men to the force, they advanced on foot to drive the Indians from their hiding places. The contest was desperate and severe, but powder and ball eventually conquered, and the Indians, once dislodged, scattered in every direction. The trappers considered this a complete victory over the Blackfeet, for a large number of their warriors were killed, and many more were wounded, while they had but three men killed, and a few severely wounded.

Fontenelle and his party now camped at the scene of the engagement, to recruit their men, and bury here their dead. Afterward they trapped through the whole Blackfeet country, and with great success; going where they pleased without fear or molestation. The Indians kept off their route, evidently having acquaintance with Carson and his company enough to last them their life time. With the small-pox and the white man's rifles the warriors were much reduced, and the tribe which had formerly numbered thirty thousand, was already decimated, and a few more blows, like the one dealt by this dauntless band, would suffice to break its spirit, and destroy its power for future evil.

During the battle with the trappers, the women and children of the Blackfeet village were sent on in advance, and when the engagement was over, and the braves returned to them so much reduced in numbers, and without a single scalp, the big lodge that had been erected for the war dance, was given up for the wounded, and in hundreds of Indian hearts grew a bitterer hatred for the white man.

An express, despatched for the purpose, announced the place of the rendezvous to Fontenelle and Carson, who were now on Green River, and with their whole party and a large stock of furs, they at once set out for the place upon Mud River, to find the sales commenced before their arrival, so that in twenty days they were ready to break up camp.

Carson now organized a party of seven, and proceeded to a trading post called Brown's Hole, where he joined a company of traders to go to the Navajoe Indians. He found this tribe more assimilated to the white man than any Indians he had yet seen, having many fine horses and large flocks of sheep and cattle. They also possessed the art of weaving, and their blankets were in great demand through Mexico, bringing high prices, on account of their great beauty, being woven in flowers with much taste. They were evidently a remnant of the Aztec race.

They traded here for a large drove of fine mules, which, taken to the fort on the South Platte, realized good prices, when Carson went again to Brown's Hole, a narrow but pretty valley about sixteen miles long, upon the Colorado River.

After many offers for his services from other parties, Carson at length engaged himself for the winter, to hunt for the men at this fort, and as the game was abundant in this beautiful valley, and in the caÑon country further down the Colorado, in its deer, elk, and antelope, reminding him of his hunts upon the Sacramento, the task was a delightful one to him.

In the spring, Carson trapped with Bridger and Owen's with passable success, and went to the rendezvous upon Wind River, at the head of the Yellowstone, and from thence, with a large part of the trappers at the rendezvous, to the Yellowstone, where they camped in the vicinity for the winter, without seeing their old enemy, the Blackfeet Indians, until mid-winter, when they discovered that they were near their principal stronghold.

A party of forty was selected to give them battle, with Carson, of course, for their captain. They found the Indians already in the field, to the number of several hundred, who made a brave resistance, until night and darkness admonished both parties to retire. In the morning when Carson and his men went to the spot whither the Indians had retired, they were not to be found. They had given them a "wide berth," taking their all away with them, even their dead.

Carson and his command returned to camp, where a council of war decided that as the Indians would report, at the principal encampment, the terrible loss they had sustained, and others would be sent to renew the fight, it was wise to prepare to act on the defensive, and use every precaution immediately; and accordingly a sentinel was stationed on a lofty hill near by, who soon reported that the Indians were upon the move.

Their plans matured, they at once threw up a breastwork, under Carson's direction, and waited the approach of the Indians, who came in slowly, the first parties waiting for those behind. After three days, a full thousand had reached the camp, about half a mile from the breastwork of the trappers. In their war paint—stripes of red across the forehead, and down either cheek—with their bows and arrows, tomahawks, and lances, this army of Indians presented a formidable appearance to the small body of trappers who were opposed to them.

The war dance was enacted in sight and hearing of the trappers, and at early dawn the Indians advanced, having made every preparation for the attack. Carson commanded his men to reserve their fire till the Indians were near enough to have every shot tell; but seeing the strength of the white men's position, after a few ineffectual shots, the Indians retired, camped a mile from them, and finally separated into two parties, and went away, leaving the trappers to breathe more freely, for, at the best, the encounter must have been of a desperate character.

They evidently recognized the leader who had before dealt so severely with them, in the skill with which the defence was arranged, and if the name of Kit Carson was on their lips, they knew him for both bravery and magnanimity, and had not the courage to offer him battle.

Another winter gone, saddlery, moccasin-making, lodge-building, to complete the repairs of the summer's wars and the winter's fight, all completed, Carson with fifteen men went, past Fort Hall, again to the Salmon River, and trapped part of the season there and upon Big Snake, and Goose Creeks, and selling his furs at Fort Hall, again joined Bridger in another trapping excursion into the Blackfeet country.

The Blackfeet had molested the traps of another party who had arrived there before them, and had driven them away. The Indian assailants were still near, and Carson led his party against them, taking care to station himself and men in the edge of a thicket, where they kept the savages at bay all day, taking a man from their number with nearly every shot of their well directed rifles. In vain the Indians now attempted to fire the thicket; it would not burn, and sullenly they retired, forced again to acknowledge defeat at the hands of Kit Carson, the "Monarch of the Prairies."

Carson's party now joined with the others, but concluding that they could not trap successfully with the annoyance the Indians were likely to give them, as their force was too small to hope to conquer, they left this part of the country for the north fork of the Missouri.

Now they were with the friendly Flatheads, one of whose chiefs joined them in the hunt, and went into camp near them, with a party of his braves. This tribe of Indians, like several other tribes which extend along this latitude to the Pacific, have the custom which gives them their name, thus described by Irving, in speaking of the Indians upon the Lower Columbia, about its mouth.

"A most singular custom," he says, "prevails, not only among the Chinooks, but among most of the tribes about this part of the coast, which is the flattening of the forehead. The process by which this deformity is effected, commences immediately after birth. The infant is laid in a wooden trough, by way of cradle. The end on which the head reposes is higher than the rest. A padding is placed on the forehead of the infant, with a piece of bark above it, and is pressed down by cords which pass through holes upon the sides of the trough. As the tightening of the padding and the pressure of the head to the board is gradual, the process is said not to be attended with pain. The appearance of the infant, however, while in this state of compression is whimsically hideous, and 'its little black eyes,' we are told, 'being forced out by the tightness of the bandages, resemble those of a mouse choked in a trap.'

"About a year's pressure is sufficient to produce the desired effect, at the end of which time, the child emerges from its bandages, a complete flathead, and continues so through life. It must be noted, however, that this flattening of the head has something in it of aristocratic significance, like the crippling of the feet among the Chinese ladies of quality. At any rate, it is the sign of freedom. No slave is permitted to bestow this deformity upon the head of his children; all the slaves, therefore, are roundheads."