Most persons would have thought that the journey of some thousand miles on foot, through a trackless wilderness where he was exposed every step of the way, to howling wolves and merciless savages, a pretty serious undertaking.

Kit appears to have regarded it but as an every-day occurrence.
He joined a party of returning traders.

Much of the region they traversed may be aptly described in the language which Irving applies to Spain.

"It is a stern melancholy country, with rugged mountains and long sweeping plains, indescribably lonesome, solitary, savage." After travelling nearly five hundred miles, about half the distance back to Missouri, they reached a ford of the Arkansas river.

Here they met another party of traders bound to Santa Fe.