382 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



trappers must, one would think, occasionally cause 

 them to turn their thoughts to a Supreme Being; 

 but such is not the case. Their rifle is their god 

 their knife their patron saint their strong right 

 hand their only trust. The trapper shuns his fellow- 

 men; and the glance with which he measures the 

 stranger whom he encounters on his path, is oftener 

 that of a murderer than a friend : the love of gain is 

 as strong with him as it is found to be in a civilised 

 state of society, and the meeting of two trappers is 

 generally the signal for the death of one of them. 

 He hates his white competitor for the much-prized 

 beaver skins far more than he does his Indian one : 

 the latter he shoots down as coolly as if he were a 

 wolf or a bear ; but when he drives his knife into 

 the breast of the former, it is with as much devil- 

 ish joy as if he felt he were ridding mankind of as 

 great an evil-doer as himself. The nourishment of 

 the trapper, consisting for years together of buffalo's 

 flesh the strongest food that a man can eat and 

 taken without bread or any other accompaniment, 

 doubtless contributes to render him wild and inhuman, 

 and to assimilate him in a certain degree to the savage 

 animals by which he is surrounded. 



During an excursion that I made with some com- 

 panions towards the upper part of the Eed Eiver, we 

 met with several of these trappers ; amongst others, 

 Avith one weather-beaten old fellow, whose face and 

 bare neck were tanned by sun and exposure to the 



