Hunting Lore 277 



Mountain trappers quite what Hermann Melville 

 did for the -South Sea whaling folk in "Omoo" and 

 "Moby Dick." The best description of these old- 

 time dwellers among the mountains and on the 

 plains is to be found in a couple of good volumes 

 by the Englishman Ruxton. However, the back- 

 woodsmen proper, both in their forest homes and 

 when they first began to venture out on the prairie, 

 have been portrayed by a master hand. In a suc- 

 cession of wonderfully drawn characters, ranging 

 from "Aaron Thousandacres" and "Ishmael Bush," 

 Fenimore Cooper has preserved for always the like- 

 nesses of these stark pioneer settlers and backwoods 

 hunters; uncouth, narrow, hard, suspicious, but 

 with all the virile virtues of a young and masterful 

 race, a race of mighty breeders, mighty fighters, 

 mighty commonwealth builders. As for Leather- 

 stocking, he is one of the undying men of story; 

 grand, simple, kindly, pure-minded, stanchly loyal, 

 the type of the steel-thewed and iron-willed hunter- 

 warrior. 



Turning from the men of fiction to the men of 

 real life, it is worth noting how many of the lead- 

 ers among our statesmen and soldiers have sought 

 strength and pleasure in the chase, or in kindred 

 vigorous pastimes. Of course field sports, or at 

 least the wilder kinds, which entail the exercise of 

 faring, and the endurance of toil and hardship, and 



