INTRODUCTION T 



absolute, irresponsible freedom that can be en- 

 joyed only in a state of nature. Never in our 

 history have there been pioneers who took greater 

 risks than they, or endured harsher vicissitudes, 

 or severed themselves so completely from the civil- 

 ization in which they were bom. Nowhere, and 

 at no time, have men of our race been thrown 

 more upon their individual resources in unknown 

 regions, and through periods of great peril, nor 

 have there ever been characters more fitly devel- 

 oped to stand such strain. 



Cut ofF from the repressing and refining in- 

 fluences of civilization, forever warring with this 

 Indian tribe and cohabiting with that, it was in- 

 evitable that most of these men should revert 

 toward the status of white barbarians. And yet 

 it would be a grave error, an injustice, to rate 

 them with mere renegades and desperadoes. The 

 trapper, whatever his faults, was stil] every inch 

 a man. Bravest of the brave, yet cool and saga- 

 cious in the strategy of border war, capable in any 

 emergency, faithful to his own code of honor, gen- 

 erous without limit to everyone but his foes, loyal 

 to the death, frankly contemptuous of luxury and 

 caste and affectation, imperial in his self-respect 

 but granting equal rights to others, there was 

 something heroic in this fierce and uncouth figure 

 who dominated for a time the vast plains and 

 mountains of the wild West. And it should not 

 be forgotten that the early traders and trappers 



