Volume 2 begins with Carson carrying the news of the conquest of California across the country to Washington, D.C., stopping en route to see his wife in Taos, New Mexico. The older Carson consolidates his fame as a courier, scout, soldier, and Indian agent. Americans, avid for newfound gold, turn to him as an authority on trail lore, and the government recognizes his usefulness in dealing with "the Indian problem." Carson is seen against the larger background of incessant warfare in the Southwest after midcentury. He fights the Kiowas at Adobe Walls, chases the Apaches, and forces the Navajos into the Bosque Redondo. He fights in the Civil War and retires at fifty-eight-but dies two years later in 1868.

Edwin L. Sabin, author of Wild Men of the West, concludes with an assessment of Carson's character and place in history. Introducing these volumes is Marc Simmons, an authority on Carson and the author of Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande, also available in a Bison Books edition.