They were way-worn pilgrims, and the grotesqueness of their attire, and their unshaven, uncut, and almost uncombed locks, added to their weird-like aspect.
Here the party met with two gentlemen, such as were rarely, perhaps never before, seen on such an occasion.

One was a Christian missionary, Father De Smidt, who, in obedience to the Saviour's commission, "Go ye into all the world and preach my Gospel to every creature," had abandoned the comforts of civilization, to cast in his lot with the savages, that he might teach them that religion of the Bible which would redeem the world by leading all men to repentance, to faith in an atoning Saviour, and to endeavor "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." The other stranger was an English nobleman, a gentleman of high character, of refinement and culture.

In his ancestral home he had heard of the sublimities of the wilderness; the wide-spread prairies; the gloomy forests; the solitary lakes.

He had heard of savage men, numbering tens of thousands in their tribes, almost as wild, as devoid of human traits as were the buffaloes whom they pursued with whoop and halloo over the plains.

Curiosity, a very rational and praiseworthy curiosity, had lured him into these remote realms, that he might behold the wondrous works of God, and that he might study the condition of his brother man without the Gospel.
Kit Carson was, by a natural instinct, drawn into association with this refined English gentleman.