JOHN COLTER FREE TRAPPER 1G7 



hunters, and for the third time turned his face to the 

 wilderness ? Had he not wandered with the Crows, 

 fought the Blackfeet, gone down to St. Louis, and been 

 impelled by that strange impulse of adventure which 

 was to the hunter what the instinct of migration is to 

 bird and fish and buffalo and all wild things to go 

 yet again to the wilderness ? Such was the passion for 

 the wilds that ruled the life of all free trappers. 



The free trappers formed a class by themselves. 



Other trappers either hunted on a salary of $200, 

 $300, $400 a year, or on shares, like fishermen of the 

 Grand Banks outfitted by &quot; planters,&quot; or like western 

 prospectors outfitted by companies that supply pro 

 visions, boats, and horses, expecting in return the major 

 share of profits. The free trappers fitted themselves 

 out, owed allegiance to no man, hunted where and how 

 they chose, and refused to carry their furs to any fort 

 but the one that paid the highest prices. For the 

 mangeurs de lard, as they called the fur company 

 raftsmen, they had a supreme contempt. For the meth 

 ods of the fur companies, putting rivals to sleep with 

 laudanum or bullet and ever stirring the savages up to 

 warfare, the free trappers had a rough and emphati 

 cally expressed loathing. 



The crime of corrupting natives can never be laid 

 to the free trapper. He carried neither poison, nor 

 what was worse than poison to the Indian whisky 

 among the native tribes. The free trapper lived on 

 good terms with the Indian, because his safety de 

 pended on the Indian. Renegades like Bird, the de 

 serter from the Hudson s Bay Company, or Eose, who 

 abandoned the Astorians, or Beckwourth of apocryphal 



