Kit Carson was shown on the cover of an old dime novel slaying six Indians with one hand while protecting a fair maiden with the other. Stories about him, mainly apocryphal, circulated well before his death in 1868 and have been handed down in a multitude of biographies. Now Harvey L. Carter joins with Thelma S. Guild to present the fullest, most authoritative biography of Kit Carson ever written. Carefully separating myth from fact, the authors draw on a wide variety of sources, published and unpublished, including private letters. Their scrupulous restoration of Kit Carson in his geographical and historical setting proves that scholarship can have entertaining results: "Kit Carson: A Pattern for Heroes" is a cracking good adventure story.