Show A A II I I I of the Old Vii IAN N erre r i a coos 1 a SIOUX s sr r r L LI I p SN ES s 1 NATI a 4 C r I ca W t rb R T DIO RS T l rr 1 ara r a 1 w I C OK t 4 t alv E rS on sur T AI S CA KS an t i o UTES r t k ff o a i ou 2 J u ar arow t r t y yc c 1 7 0 S z JI Q t 9 c NG r o Sg Trio N r W 1 r b r 3 7 I IBy By ELMO SCOTT WATSON On ChrIstmas day In the mornIng under sIzed tow headed 1809 1509 tin an legged bandy blue eyed boy sped Into the worM world squalling lustily with an uncontrolled uncontrolled un- un controlled excitement which no later adventure could arouse In hIm Small Sma legged bandy eyed blue and sandy sandy- hatred haired he remained to the end ot of his days das and to this unImpressive appearance appearance appear appear- ance the sun add added d freckles Yet this bo boy typically backwoods as he was and apparently no different from other lads ot of his family and communIty was to exhibit such character display such competence and achIeve such tame fame as distinguish few other lone Jone adventurers In history nus HUS begins the saga of a great American frontiers frontiers- frontiersman m man lD fiS as recorded In a aa a book Kit The Carson Happy WarrIor of the theOld theOld Old West recently pub publIshed lashed b by Houghton Boughton MY l tin company Tile The author Is Stanley Vestal otherwise other other- 1 t wise Walter Waiter Stanley Stanle Campbell n a professor ot of English En Ush at the of Oklahoma and a 1 man who has had hadan nn an unusual opportunity to write THe the he final word in u a KIt Carson biography For FOI as he says In the preface I am familiar with much of the country Kit ranged over o and with that Southwest which tie he made his long life head head- quarters I grew up among the Ch Chey Cheyenne enne and Arapaho Indians the trIbes with which he was most intimately as an and from which he took hs his two IndIan wives And I think I have seldom missed an opportunity to talk with an timer old who could tell me about the days an and ways of AmerIcas AmerIca's heroic age Among those orIginal sources of material ma ma- he lists such persons as George Bent son of Cot Col William Bent and Owl Woman and gran grandson son of the Keeper of th the Cheyenne MedicIne Ar Ar- Arrows rows Left Hand and Waton a of the Arapaho Indians and Wolf Chief Chef Burnt All Over O-er n man Nose ose Thunder Edmond GuerrIer of the In addition to these and his stepfather James Hob Robert rt Campbell who served on the staff of Bancroft the hIstorian and spent nt I much of his time in tanking thins In the Southwest the author ot of this book boole has made use of the r researches re- re searches of such historians as Geor George p Bird GrInnell Edwin L. L Sabin H. H M. M 1 R n. L L. and C. C Grant who last year pub fished for the first time Carsons Carson's own memoirs A As one of the Bf Big Four of the American the Frontier other three are Daniel Boone noone Davy Crockett und and Sam Kit Houston Carson has hag beer heer written about But Dut as Mr Ir Vestal Yes Ves- tal points out Kits first biographers made him out a striking but unu unac unaccountable countable hero The They placed him In It a spotlight which threw all the background back back- round ground of It his a age e In shadow representing him as at once blameless and colorless The effect was to make the theman man f and to leave ea e the rend er with a hunch that the evidence tad had been doctored doctore To make er Worse tine the Western Hero becam com coin and the country wa was flooded d with showmen who for n a posed an and and made muJe of the Old West Vest a bur bur- lesque This sickening spectacle made madeus us all more skeptical than ever and Kit Carson seemed about to go the Way or of the noble ned fled man In popular favor For there was no readable Life to relate the man to the character charac charac- ter of the tImes he be lived In no cred- cred Ible account of the typical product ot of that heroic age when trick cowboys and professional humans were as yet unknown As research mops mop up the corners and corrects the errors of the earlier accounts of his career It Is more and more clear that the legend needs rechecking It Itis Itis is time to retell the adventures of thIs great little man And that Is what Mr Vestal has retold done Kit Carsons Carson's adventures ad and projected the action of the epic epi story against an authentic background of the Old West In which Kit lived In the first chapter he offers an Interpretation of Kit Carson the theman man and the frontiersman w which lIch sums him up as follows Dispassionate comparison will demonstrate dem- dem how worthy he Is ot of n a rank even eyen with the best ot of legendary heroes Kit Carsons Carson's endless Journeys through the wilderness make the fabled wanderings ot of Odysseus seem scent weekend week excursions ot of a stay stay- home nt-home his humanity rivals rivals' Robin RobinHood's Hoods Hood's In readIness to tight fight and In chivalry to women he rates a siege I at the Round Table his courage and coolness against hopeless odds may be matched but not surpassed by the old Norse heroes while his prowess In Innumerable innumerable In- In numerable battles all quite without the aid ot of invulnerable armor or the encouragement ot of Indulgent goddesses makes Achilles look Jook like a wash This Is no Idle boast any candid reader read read- er will admit It Yet iet Kit was no seeker after re reo Shy and matter tact he went about the business ot of his life lite with no notion that he was to be the archetype ot of the AmerIcan pioneer Before Horace Horace Hor- Hor ace Greeley thought ot of his celebrated advice KIt had already gone West Vest and grown up with the country And because be- be because cause he did grow up with It he left lert all the other mountaIn men behInd him pathetic survivors ot of n a dead epoch It was this adaptability this superior competence nce which made him the figure he remains In the history ot of the frontier When tame fame came It abashed him and he never betrayed any ot of the showmanship which h has so cheapened the western adventurers ot of a later Inter day Kit was no boaster no outlaw no charlatan no gunman Only the willfulness ot of youth flung hIm Into that endless series ot of scraps expeditions sprees battles adventures ot of every sort makIng him chief actor on the largest stage whereon a heroic age ever went Its swift and roarIng way to law and civilization He looked his part so little that on one occasion some emigrants on on the Oregon Trail hayIng hay have Ing paused to stare at the famous scout went back to their wagons hooting and laughing too smart to be hoaxed by those who had pointed out lInt liat looking Insignificant little J man When tame fame could no longer Ge fe denied denied de- de nied the myth makers went to work They piled their legends about Kit until the man himself Is hardly seen They concealed and Ignored the wild deeds ot of his youth though he killed more men than Billy the KId thy they said nothing ot of his adventures with women though he Is known to have hwe married three times and twIce without without with with- out the blessing ot of the church Not knowing how to present such a man they manufactured a monster On the theone theone one hand they tailed failed to exhibit the humanity ot of their victim on the tho other they magnified his exploits layIng It on a too thick II to use Kits Kit's Its It's own sly comment on on the authorized Life I The high lights In the life ot of Kit Carson have been toll told so often that they are familiar to most AmerIcans AmerIcans- how when Kit was a year ear old the arson ar son family left hs his birthplace In son county Kentucky and went to 1 Missouri how ns as a small boy Kit ran wild with the neighbors neighbors' children hunted coons and dId chores about home how he was apprenticed to n saddler at Franklin I Mo Io but ran away s se eking adventure ns as a trapper Then followed his first trIp to Santa Fe N N. N y J. with the wagon train of Bent St. St rain Vrain and company IndIan and Mexican traders which was to launch him upon his amazing career ns as Q a mountain man scout guide for Cor General Gen Gen- exal eral Fremont Indian fighter Civil Cl war warleader leader on the New ew Mexican frontier guardian of the Santa Fe trail an and Father Kit in the governments government's dealings with the Indians Such a career of coarse cO with it Ity multitude or of thrilling Incidents san gave the Wild West type of writer n a chance to do his best or worst and few or of them failed to make the most of the opportunity In writing of Kit Carson The result has been a jumble fumble of truth and absurdity which fully Cully justifies this latest Carson biographers biographer's pher's criticisms of his predecessors nut But he has exploded many of the old l legends and In their place substituted either the facts or theories which can he be accepted ns as logical and reasonable For Instance Carson has hns been painted as a man with n a vision ot of the fi vast t empire of the West which he was to heip open p i if 1 I TIit new picture of n Carson shows him ns as nn an empire buM er all right not because he Intended to he be one hut but because he liked till the life which these unconscious ious empire empire- builders the lived scouting fighting of had had Indians and making treaties with rood ones trapping hunting dancing drinking an and loving For In instance stance Carson dl did not go with Fre Fremont Fremont mont to carry the Stars and Stripes to the summits of the and win this vast fist territory for his country country- as the sentimentalist historians would woul have It Kit went with Fremont says Mr Vestal Because he loved Josepha his third thir an and last wife and wanted to better himself Like most pc people ople do things In the world of affairs he was moved by no grand rand schemes or highfalutin sense of servIce servo Ice or honor but simply set his heart hearton on a woman and a little money Anti that Is sound common sense ms His manner of dying waS us as simple simp as the manner of his living The end came May Ia 23 1863 at Fort L Lyon on Colo where he was under the care of an arm army surgeon lIe He was tired of the foo food that had been given ghen him Cool Cook me ate some fast fust rate oln's doln's said the ol old scout A A buffalo steal nn and a howl bowl of coffee and a pipe are ure what I need The surgeon warned him that the meal would probably be fatal But Kit insisted and the surgeon knowing that he was wae going soon n did not long Appose hIm The expected hemorrhage followed Kit called out Im gone Doctor compadre adios The end was swift So died Kit Carson bra brave brae e unaffected sufficient Belt to the last purr puff ot of his old a valiant trencherman with the bull meat under his belt and the he old glean In his hi tired eyes blowIng blowing blow blow- Ing smoke Into the Jaws ot of death whom he hai Routed 1 so often otten This Is the happy warrior this I he That every man In arms should wish to be a I |