Bancroft 



PREFACE. 



THIS collection of stories is designed to exhibit the 

 western hunters and trappers in their true character. 

 The narratives are all matters of fact and not of fancy, 

 and they have been selected from a great mass of a 

 similar character, on a principle of choice, which the 

 compiler believes will be approved by his readers ; the 

 principle, namely, of displaying all the different phases 

 of the western hunter's perilous and adventurous life, 

 as far as was practicable in so small a space. 



The reader, it is believed, will find in the volume a 

 sufficient amount of novelty and variety, to repay him 

 for the time spent in perusing its pages ; and he will, 

 probably, on closing it, come to the same conclusion 

 which the compiler arrived at long since, namely, that 

 hunting adventures with bears, panthers, wild cats, and 

 other animals of a similar description, are, on the whole, 



enjoyed much better as one reads them in a book, 



- ' (7) 



