CHAPTER XIII. 
PASSAGE OF THE GREAT CANON OF THE COLORADO BY JAMES 
| WHITE, THE PROSPECTOR. 
T'WENTY years ago the trapper and hunter were the romantic 
characters of the Far West. They still figure in fiction, and 
there is a fascination about their daring deeds which, in 
America, makes Boone a household name, and throws an 
air of chivalry, seldom to be felt now-a-day, around the 
exploits of such men as Carson, Crockett, and Williams. 
Nor is our admiration for these hardy men undeserved ; they 
have trapped on every Western stream, and hunted on every 
mountain-side, despite the opposition of the Indian and the 
barrier of winter snows. They have been the skirmish line 
of that great army of occupation which is daily pushing 
estward, and they have taught the savage to respect the 
wwhite man’s courage and to fear the white man’s power. 
While the field for the trapper and hunter has been 
gradually growing less, another class of adventurers has come 
into existence—the “prospectors” im search of precious 
metals. Within the last nineteen years these men have 
traversed every mountain slope, from the rugged peaks of 
British Columbia to the rich plateaux of old Mexico ; and 
have searched the sands of every stream from the Mississippi 
to the shores of the Pacific, stimulated by the same hope of 
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