Show mal bor groa armes SI lux 21 S N A tr i N S SN d wy H J ar I 1 6 44 15 0 pon TA 1110 if LLA 0 0 PA as 0 o amr c ua to of J V row t vy by ELNO SCOTT WATSON on christmas day in the morning 1809 1800 nn an undersized under sized towheaded tow headed landy bandy legged blue eyed boy sped aped into tha the world equalling squal ling lustily with an uncontrolled excitement which no later adventure could arouse in him small bandy legged blue eyed and sandy bandy haired he ha remained to the end of his days day and to this unimpressive api appearance pear the sun added freckles yet this ll 11 boy typically backwoods as he be wan wa land and aar apr vently no different from other lads lade of his family and community was wa to exhibit such character display sucks such competence arid and achieve such fame as distinguish few other lone adventurers in history HUS begins the saga of a great american frontiersman as recorded in a boo book it kit carson the happy warrior of the old west recently published by houghton mif julf lin company the author Is stanley vestal otherwise walter valter stanley campball a professor ot or ea english at the university of oklahoma and it ft man who has had bad an unusual opportunity to write the final word in a kit kl carson biography for as he be says in the preface 1 I am familiar with much of the country kit hit ranged over and with that southwest Sout hwesi which he be made ills his lifelong life long headquarters I 1 grew up among the cheyenne end and arapaho indians the tribes with which ho he was most moat intimately a associated socia soc ted and from froia which he took his two indian wives and I 1 think I 1 have beldom missed an opportunity to talk with an old timer who could tell me about the days and ways of americas heroic age 11 among those original sources of material he lists such persons as george bent befit son of col william bent and owl woman and grandson of the keeper of the cheyenne medicine arrows left hand arld and watonga katonga of the arapaho indians and wolf chief burnt all over roman nose thunder edmond guarrieri Gner Guar rier of the in addition to these and his stepfather james robert campbell who served on oil the staff of bancroft the historian and spent much of his time in making investigations in the southwest the author of this book has made uso use of the researches of such historians as george bird grinnell edwin L L sabin H M R L Th waltes and ana blanche 0 grants grant who last year pub fished for the first time carsons own mem memoirs bIrs As one of the big four of the american frontier lerl the other three are daniel doone boone davy crockett and sam houston kit carson has haa been much written about but as mr vestal points out kits first biographers made him out a striking but unaccountable hero they placed him in a spotlight which threw all the back ground of his age in shadow representing him as at once blameless and colorless the effect was i as to make the man incredible and to leave the realder reader with a bunch that the evidence lad been doctored to make masters worse the wes western tern hero becam com find and the county was flooded with showmen who for a consideration posed and fostered post ered ana made of the old west a clene burlesque this sickening spectacle made ns as all more skeptical than ban ever and kit carton carson seemed about to go tiler ther way of the noble red ked man in popular favor for there was no readable life to relate the man to the character of the times he be lived in no cred ible account of the typical product of that heroic age when trick cowboys and professional humans were as yet unknown As research mops up the corners and corrects the errors of the earlier accounts of his carper career it la Is more and more clear that the legend needs rechecking it la Is time to retell the adventures of this great little man 10 and that Is what mr air vestal has done retold kit hit carsons adventurer and projected the action of the epic story against an authentic background of the old west in which kit carson lived in the orsi first chapter he be offers an interpretation of kit hit carson the man and the frontiersman which sums him up as follows dispassionate comparison will demonstrate on how worthy he to la of a rank even with the best beat of legendary heroes kit carsons e endless journeys through the wilderness make the tabled mediterranean wanderings of odysseus seem weekend week end excursions of a stay at home his humanity rivals bobin hoods alood B in readiness to right fight andl and in chivalry to women he be rates a siege at the hound table his courage and coolness against hopeless odds may be matched but not surpassed by the old norse korea heroes while his prowess in ln in numerable battles all quite witti out the aid of invulnerable armor or the encouragement of indulgent goddesses makes achilles look like a washout wash out able this ts Is no idle boast any candid read erwill admit it IL yet kit was no seeker after renown shy and matter ot of fact he went about tho the business of his life with no notion that he was to be the archetype of the american pioneer before horace greeley thought of his celebrated advice kit had already pone gone west a and nd grown crowns up with the country and because he did grow up with it he be left all the other mountain men behind hm him pathetic survivors of ft a deak dead epoch it was this adaptability this superior competence which made him the figure he remains in the history of the frontier when turns fame came it abashed him and he never betrayed any of the showmanship which has so BO cheapened the western adventurers adventure ra ot of a later day kit was ivan no boaster no outlaw no charlatan no gunman only the willfulness of youth flung him into that endless series of scraps expeditions sprees ba battles atles adventures of every sort malting making him chief actor on the largest stage whereon a heroic age ever wont went its swift and roaring way to law and cl lie he looked III his part so 80 little that on one occasion some som emigrants on the oregon trait trail having paused to stare at the famous scout went back to their wagons hooting and laughing laught na too smart to be hoaxed by those who had pointed out that insignificant looking little roan man when famo fame could no longer bo be dented denied the myth makers went to work they plied their legends about kit hit until the man himself Is hardly seen they concealed and ignored the wild deeds of his youth though lie he killed in more ore men than billy the kid they said nothing of hla his adventures with women though he Is known to have married three times and twice without the blessing of the church not knowing how to present such A man they manufactured a monster on the one hand they failed to exhibit the humanity of their victim on the other they magni magnified fled ills his exploits laying it on a beetle too thick to use kits own cown sly air comment on the authorized lite life the high lights la in the life of kit KII carson have been told so often th that it they are familiar to most americans how when kit was a year old the carson family left his birthplace in madl son county kentucky end and went to missouri how ns as a small email boy kit ran wild with the neighbors children hunted coons and did chores about home how lie he was apprenticed to a saddler at franklin mo ho but ran away se aking lne adventure as a trapper then followed his bis first trip to santa fe f N ai with the wagon train of bent st vrain and company indian and mexican traders which was to launch him upon his amazing career as it a mountain man scout gui gul defor gen oral eral fremont indian fighter civil war leader on the new mexican frontier guardian of the santa fe trail and father kit in the govern governments menVil dealings with the indians such a career of course with its multitude of thrilling incidents denta gave the wild west type of writer a chance to do his best or worst and few of them failed to make the most of the opportunity in writing of kit carson the result has been a jumble I 1 of truth and absurdity which fully ju justinea stifles this latest carson blo blagra gra phern phera criticisms of nisi mal predecessors but he be has exploded many of the old legends and in their place substituted either the facts or theories which can be accepted as logical and reasonable for instance carson has been painted as a man with a vision of the ibe vast empire of the west which he was to help belp open up op this new picture of carson shows him as an empire builder all right not because he intended to be one but because he liked tile life which these unconscious empire builders lived the abe scouting fighting of bad indians and making treaties with good ones trapping hunting dancing drinking drinkin gand and loving for instance carson did not go with fremont to carry the stars and stripes to the summits sum nilta of the and win this vast territory for his country as the serial sentimentalist mental historians ans would have it kit went with fremont soya says mr vestal because he be loved josepha hla his third and last wife and wanted to better himself like roost most people who do things in the world of affairs he was moved by no grand schemes or sense of service OT 0 honor but simply set his heart on a woman and a little money and that Is sound round common benie sense ills his manner of dying was as as the manner of his living the end came may 23 1609 at fort lyon colo cola where he was under the care ot of an army surgeon he was tired af the food that had been given him cook some fust rate dows said the old scout A buffalo steak and a bowl of coffee and a pipe are what I 1 need 01 the surgeon warned him that the meal would probably be fatal gut but kit insisted and the surgeon burgeon knowing that he be was waa going soon eoon did not long oppose him the expected hemorrhage followed kit called out im gonel doctor compayre compadre coro com padre adi oal the end and was swift so died kit carson brave brav unaffected self sufficient to the last puff of big old dunheen dud heen a valiant trencherman with the bull meat ender hla his belts belt ana and the old gleam in hui hu tired eyes blowing smoke into the tha jaws of death whom he haa ha flouted so eo often tills this Is the happy warrior this Is if he that hat every man in arms should wish to be |