THE FORESTS OF OREGON 



fying as these accounts must be, a tourist's 

 frightened rush and scramble through the 

 woods yields far less than the hunter's wildest 

 stories, while in writing we can do but little 

 more than to give a few names, as they come 

 to mind, — beaver, squirrel, coon, fox, mar- 

 ten, fisher, otter, ermine, wildcat, — only this 

 instead of full descriptions of the bright-eyed 

 furry throng, their snug home nests, their 

 fears and fights and loves, how they get their 

 food, rear their young, escape their enemies, 

 and keep themselves warm and well and ex- 

 quisitely clean through all the pitiless weather. 

 For many years before the settlement of 

 the country the fur of the beaver brought a 

 high price, and therefore it was pursued with 

 weariless ardor. Not even in the quest for gold 

 has a more ruthless, desperate energy been 

 developed. It was in those early beaver-days 

 that the striking class of adventurers called 

 "free trappers" made their appearance. Bold, 

 enterprising men, eager to make money, and 

 inclined at the same time to relish the license 

 of a savage life, would set forth with a few 

 traps and a gun and a hunting-knife, content 

 at first to venture only a short distance up 

 the beaver-streams nearest to the settlements, 

 and where the Indians were not likely to mo- 

 lest them. There they would set their traps, 

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