The influx of this wandering trade has had its effects on the habits of the mountaintribes. They have found the trapping of the beaver their most profitable species ofhunting; and the traffic with the white man has opened to them sources of luxury ofwhich they previously had no idea. The introduction of firearms has rendered themmore successful hunters, but at the same time, more formidable foes; some of them,incorrigibly savage and warlike in their nature, have found the expeditions of the furtraders grand objects of profitable adventure. To waylay and harass a band of trapperswith their pack-horses, when embarrassed in the rugged defiles of the mountains, hasbecome as favorite an exploit with these Indians as the plunder of a caravan to theArab of the desert. The Crows and Blackfeet, who were such terrors in the path of theearly adventurers to Astoria, still continue their predatory habits, but seem to havebrought them to greater system. They know the routes and resorts of the trappers;where to waylay them on their journeys; where to find them in the hunting seasons, andwhere to hover about them in winter quarters. The life of a trapper, therefore, is aperpetual state militant, and he must sleep with his weapons in his hands.
A new order of trappers and traders, also, has grown out of this system of things. In theold times of the great Northwest Company, when the trade in furs was pursued chieflyabout the lakes and rivers, the expeditions were carried on in batteaux and canoes. Thevoyageurs or boatmen were the rank and file in the service of the trader, and even thehardy "men of the north," those great rufflers and game birds, were fain to be paddledfrom point to point of their migrations.
A totally different class has now sprung up:--"the Mountaineers," the traders andtrappers that scale the vast mountain chains, and pursue their hazardous vocationsamidst their wild recesses. They move from place to place on horseback. Theequestrian exercises, therefore, in which they are engaged, the nature of the countriesthey traverse, vast plains and mountains, pure and exhilarating in atmospheric qualities,seem to make them physically and mentally a more lively and mercurial race than thefur traders and trappers of former days, the self-vaunting "men of the north." A manwho bestrides a horse must be essentially different from a man who cowers in a canoe.
We find them, accordingly, hardy, lithe, vigorous, and active; extravagant in word, andthought, and deed; heedless of hardship; daring of danger; prodigal of the present, andthoughtless of the future.
A difference is to be perceived even between these mountain hunters and those of thelower regions along the waters of the Missouri. The latter, generally French creoles, livecomfortably in cabins and log-huts, well sheltered from the inclemencies of theseasons. They are within the reach of frequent supplies from the settlements; their lifeis comparatively free from danger, and from most of the vicissitudes of the upperwilderness. The consequence is that they are less hardy, self-dependent and game-spirited thanthe mountaineer. If the latter by chance comes among them on his way toand from the settlements, he is like a game-cock among the common roosters of thepoultry-yard. Accustomed to live in tents, or to bivouac in the open air, he despises thecomforts and is impatient of the confinement of the log-house. If his meal is not ready inseason, he takes his rifle, hies to the forest or prairie, shoots his own game, lights hisfire, and cooks his repast. With his horse and his rifle, he is independent of the world,and spurns at all its restraints. The very superintendents at the lower posts will not puthim to mess with the common men, the hirelings of the establishment, but treat him assomething superior.
There is, perhaps, no class of men on the face of the earth, says Captain Bonneville,who lead a life of more continued exertion, peril, and excitement, and who are moreenamored of their occupations, than the free trappers of the West. No toil, no danger,no privation can turn the trapper from his pursuit. His passionate excitement at timesresembles a mania. In vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages beset his path; invain may rocks and precipices and wintry torrents oppose his progress; let but a singletrack of a beaver meet his eye, and he forgets all dangers and defies all difficulties. Attimes, he may be seen with his traps on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapidstreams, amidst floating blocks of ice: at other times, he is to be found with his trapsswung on his back clambering the most rugged mountains, scaling or descending themost frightful precipices, searching, by routes inaccessible to the horse, and neverbefore trodden by white man, for springs and lakes unknown to his comrades, andwhere he may meet with his favorite game. Such is the mountaineer, the hardy trapperof the West; and such, as we have slightly sketched it, is the wild, Robin Hood kind oflife, with all its strange and motley populace, now existing in full vigor among the RockyMountains.
Having thus given the reader some idea of the actual state of the fur trade in the interiorof our vast continent, and made him acquainted with the wild chivalry of the mountains,we will no longer delay the introduction of Captain Bonneville and his band into this fieldof their enterprise, but launch them at once upon the perilous plains of the Far West. [Return to Contents].
