8 INTRODUCTION 



performed an indispensable service to their coun- 

 try that no other men of their time were able, or 

 at least willing, to do : they were the explorers, the 

 trail-makers, for western civilization. 



General Chittenden, our first authority on the 

 history of the fur trade, says of the mountain 

 men : " It was the roving trader and the solitary 

 trapper who first sought out these inhospitable 

 wilds, traced the streams to their sources, scaled 

 the mountain passes, and explored a boundless 

 expanse of territory where the foot of the white 

 man had never trodden before. The Far West be- 

 came a field of romantic adventure, and developed 

 a class of men who loved the wandering career of 

 the native inhabitant rather than the toilsome lot 

 of the industrious colonist. The type of life 

 thus developed, though essentially evanescent, and 

 not representing any profound national movement, 

 was a distinct and necessary phase in the growth 

 of this new country. Abounding in incidents pic- 

 turesque and heroic, its annals inspire an interest 

 akin to that which belongs to the age of knight- 

 errantry. For the free hunter of the Far West 

 was, in his rough way, a good deal of a knight- 

 errant. Caparisoned in the wild attire of the In- 

 dian, and armed cap-a-pie for instant combat, he 

 roamed far and wide over deserts and mountains, 

 gathering the scattered wealth of those regions, 

 slaying ferocious beasts and savage men, and lead- 

 ing a life in which every footstep was beset with 



