INTRODUCTION 9 



enemies and every moment pregnant of peril. The 

 great proportion of these intrepid spirits who laid 

 down their lives in that far country is impressive 

 proof of the jeopardy of their existence. All in 

 all, the period of this adventurous business may 

 justly be considered the romantic era of the his- 

 tory of the West. . . . 



" It was the trader and trapper who first ex- 

 plored and established the routes of travel which 

 are now, and always will be, the avenues of com- 

 merce in that region. They were the ' pathfind- 

 ers ' of the West, and not those later official ex- 

 plorers whom posterity so recognizes. No fea- 

 ture of western geography was ever discovered 

 by Government explorers after 1840. Every- 

 thing was already known, and had been for fully 

 a decade. It is true that many features, like the 

 Yellowstone wonderland, with which these rest- 

 less rovers were familiar, were afterward forgot- 

 ten and were re-discovered in later years ; but 

 there has never been a time until very recently 

 when the geography of the West was so thoroughly 

 understood as it was by the trader and trapper 

 from 1830 to 1840. 



" This minute knowledge was of practical use 

 in many ways. When Brigham Young selected 

 the valley of Great Salt Lake as the future home 

 of his people, he did so largely upon information 

 derived from the traders. When the War with 

 Mexico came, the military forces of the United 



