PICTURESQUE AMERICANS 33 



blood which crossed the Alleghanies in the footsteps of 

 Daniel Boone, intent on adventure or flying from civili- 

 zation. The white trapper was as averse to association 

 with his fellow-man as the hardiest of the old pioneers ; 

 in fact, he often fled the settlements for good and suflicient 

 cause. He was not so much of a misanthrope as he was 

 a law-breaker ; but it is said that many had fled from the 

 irate importunities of their respective Xanthippes. It will 

 not do to class this trapper among the Ishmaels; many 

 were pushed out beyond the frontier by their love of ad- 

 venture and expectation of gain, and were as blameless in 

 their lives as they were courageous in their calling. But 

 it is also a fact that many of these hardy fellows preferred 

 to live in a country where there was no sheriff to molest 

 nor deputy to make them afraid. The white trapper has 

 now all but died out with the buffalo, though a genera- 

 tion ago he was a common enouo^h character in the terri- 

 tories north of Colorado. His descendants have mostly 

 turned cow-punchers. 



This famous hunter was a character more practical than 

 poetic, though he has been made the subject of many fine 

 phrases and the hero of many exaggerated situations. His 

 unkempt hair and beard floated long and loose from under 

 his coyote cap, and he had lived so continuously with the 

 Indians that he had largely adopted their dress and their 

 manners — could, if need be, live on the same chuck, and 

 always had one or more squaws. He was apt to carry a 

 trade-gun — perhaps a good one, perhaps an old Brown 

 Bess cut down. At his side was slung an enormous pow- 

 der-horn, for in the old days he could not so readily re- 

 plenish his supply, far from civilization as he was wont 

 to be. He rode a Mexican saddle, for w^hich he had traded 

 skins, or maybe stolen, and from which he had cut every 

 strip of superfluous leather, as the Indian does to-day. 



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