CHAPTER X.
Fremont's Expedition.
Carson's Visit to his Childhood's Home .-- On the Steamer .-- Introduction to Fremont .-- Object of Fremont's Expedition .-- Joins the Expedition .-- Organization of the Party .-- The Encampment .-- Enchanting View .-- Fording the Kansas .-- The Stormy Night .-- The Boys on Guard .-- The Alarm .-- The Returning Trappers .-- The Homeless Adventurer .-- Three Indians Join the Party .-- First Sight of the Buffaloes .-- The Chase.
When the caravan, with which Kit Carson travelled as a passenger from Fort Bent, arrived within the boundaries of Missouri, he left his companions and, with his little daughter, turned aside to visit the home of his childhood.

He had, as we have mentioned, been absent from that home for sixteen years.

Time, death, and the progress of civilization had wrought, in that region, what seemed to him fearful ravages.

One of his biographers writes: "The scenes of his boyhood days he found to be magically changed.

New faces met him on all sides.