tories of every wild hunter and trapper
are eagerly listened to as being possibly true, or partly so, however
thickly clothed in successive folds of exaggeration and fancy.
Unsatisfying as these accounts must be, a tourist's frightened rush and
scramble through the woods yields far less than the hunter's wildest
stories, while in writing we can do but little more than to give a
few names, as they come to mind,--beaver, squirrel, coon, fox, marten,
fisher, otter, ermine, wildcat,--only this instead of full descriptions
of the bright-eyed furry throng, their snug home nests, their fears
and fights and loves, how they get their food, rear their young, escape
their enemies, and keep themselves warm and well and exquisitely clean
through all the pitiless weather.

For many years before the settlement of the country the fur of the
beaver brought a high price, and therefore it was pursued with weariless
ardor. Not even in the quest for gold has a more ruthless, desperate
energy been developed. It was in those early beaver-days that the
striking class of adventurers called "free trappers" made their
appearance. Bold, enterprising men, eager to make money, and inclined
at the same time to relish the license of a savage life, would set forth
with a few traps and a gun and a hunting knife, content at first to
venture only a short distance up the beaver streams nearest to the
settlements, and where the Indians were not likely to molest them. There
they would set their traps, while the buffalo, antelope, deer, etc.,
furnished a royal supply of food. In a few months their pack animals
would be laden with thousands of dollars' worth of fur.

Next season they would venture farther, and again farther, meanwhile
growing rapidly wilder, getting acquainted with the Indian tribes, and
usually marrying among them. Thenceforward no danger could stay them
in their exciting pursuit. Wherever there were beaver they would go,
however far or wild,--the wilder the better, provided their scalps could
be saved. Oftentimes they were compelled to set their traps and
visit them by night and lie hid during the day, when operating in the
neighborhood of hostile Indians. Not then venturing to make a fire or
shoot game, they lived on the raw flesh of the beaver, perhaps seasoned
with wild cresses or berries. Then, returning to the trading stations,
they would spend their hard earnings in a few weeks of dissipation and
"good time," and go again to the bears