— 8&7 — 
scalp them. Such victims fall every year. One of The Xearly 
our fellow travelers, who had gone to the mountains 
for the first time nine years ago with about one hun- 
dred men, estimated that by this time half the num- 
ber had fallen victims to the tomahawks of the In- 
dians. But this daily danger seems to exercise a 
magic attraction over most of them. Only with re- 
luctance does a trapper abandon his dangerous craft; 
and a sort of serious home-sickness seizes him when 
he retires from his mountain life to civilization. In 
manners and customs, the trappers have borrowed 
much from the Indians. Many of them, too, have 
taken Indian women as wives. Their dress is gener- 
ally of leather. The hair of the head is usually al- 
lowed to grow long. In place of money, they use 
beaver skins, for which they can satisfy all their needs 
at the forts by way of trade. A pound of beaver 
skins is usually paid for with four dollars worth of 
goods; but the goods themselves are sold at enor- 
mous prices, so-called mountain prices. A pint of 
meal, for instance, costs from half a dollar to a dol- 
Jar; a pint of coffee-beans, cocoa beans or sugar, two 
dollars each; a pint of diluted alcohol (the only spir- 
itous liquor to be had), four dollars; a piece of 
chewing tobacco of the commonest sort, which is usu- 
ally smoked, Indian fashion, mixed with herbs, one to 
two dollars. Guns and ammunition, bear traps, blan- 
kets, kerchiefs, and gaudy finery for the squaws, are 
also sold at enormous profit. At the yearly rendez- 
vous the trappers seek to indemnify themselves for 
