Viii THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



North, the rise of the great Hudson s Bay Company, 

 and the American enterprise which led, among other 

 results, to the foundation of the Astor fortunes, would 

 form no inconsiderable part of a history of North 

 America. The present volume aims simply to show 

 the type-character of the Western trapper, and to sketch 

 in a series of pictures the checkered life of this adven 

 turer of the wilderness. 



The trapper of the early West was a composite fig 

 ure. From the Northeast came a splendid succession of 

 French explorers like La Verendrye, with coureurs des 

 lois, and a multitude of daring trappers and traders 

 pushing west and south. From the south the Spaniard, 

 illustrated in figures like Garces and others, held 

 out hands which rarely grasped the waiting commerce. 

 From the north and northeast there was the steady 

 advance of the sturdy Scotch and English, typified in 

 the deeds of the Henrys, Thompson, MacKenzie, and the 

 leaders of the organized fur trade, explorers, traders, 

 captains of industry, carrying the flags of the Hudson s 

 Bay and North-West Fur companies across Northern 

 America to the Pacific. On the far Northwestern coast 

 the Russian appeared as fur trader in the middle of 

 the eighteenth century, and the close of the century 

 saw the merchants of Boston claiming their share of 

 the fur traffic of that coast. The American trapper 

 becomes a conspicuous figure in the early years of the 

 nineteenth century. The emporium of his traffic was 



