INTRODUCTION 23 



sonal friends, we are persuaded that none will pe- 

 ruse without interest this brief tribute to the merits 

 of a gallant soldier and accomplished English 

 gentleman." 



In the present edition no liberties have been 

 taken with the text except by correcting a few 

 obvious errors, and making the spelling conform 

 to American usage. Footnotes by the present 

 editor are marked (Ed) ; those unsigned are by 

 Ruxton himself. 



One useful purpose that this book may serve is 

 to give professional hunters and trappers their 

 due as hard working men. From time immemorial 

 it has been the fashion to look down upon their ilk 

 as lazy vagabonds " too trifling to work for a liv- 

 ing." Such is the almost universal opinion of 

 people who never have taken a big game hunt them- 

 selves, never even have seen hunters at work in the 

 wilderness, but know them only as they take their 

 well-earned ease after an exhausting chase. 



" The lazy hunter " is the most misjudged of 

 men; for really there is no harder labor than the 

 pursuit of wild animals for a livelihood. The 

 libelous epithet perhaps came in vogue from the 

 fact that hunting and trapping are apt to unfit 

 a man for settled habits of industry. Or it may 

 have come from observ^ing the whole-souled enjoy- 

 ment with which the hunter pursues his occupa- 

 tion. We have not yet got rid of the Puritan no- 

 tion that no effort is worthy unless it is painful 



