CHAPTER II.
Life in the Wilderness.
A Surgical Operation .-- A Winter with Kin Cade .-- Study of the Languages and Geography .-- Return towards Missouri .-- Engagement with a new Company and Strange Adventures .-- The Rattlesnake .-- Anecdote of Kit Carson .-- The Sahara .-- New Engagements .-- Trip to El Paso .-- Trapping and Hunting .-- Prairie Scenery .-- The Trapper's Outfit .-- Night Encampment .-- Testimony of an Amateur Hunter.
The company of traders which Kit had joined enjoyed, on the whole, a prosperous expedition.

They met with no hostile Indians and, with one exception, encountered nothing which they could deem a hardship.

There was one exception, which most persons would deem a terrible one.

The accidental discharge of a gun, incautiously handled, shattered a man's arm, shivering the bone to splinters.

The arm rapidly grew inflamed, became terribly painful, and must be amputated or the life lost.