The life of the solitary trapper in the mountains seems unendurable to one who is fond of social intercourse or of seeing now and then one of his fellow-beings. This habit of seclusion seemed to grow on some of the men and they really loved the life on that account, with all its hardships, privations, and dangers. The free trappers formed the aristocratic class of the fur-trade, and were the most interesting people in the mountains. They were bound to no fur company and were free to go where and when they pleased. It was the height of the ordinary trapper’s ambition to attain such a position. They were men of bold and adventurous spirit, for none other would have had the courage to follow so dangerous an occupation. They were liable to have too much of this spirit of bravado, and frequently did extremely foolhardy things, nor could their leaders always control them in these excesses. They were exceedingly vain of their personal appearance and extravagantly fond of ornament for both themselves and their steeds, as well as their Indian wives. Indeed, they rivaled the proud Indian himself in the manner in which they bedecked themselves with these useless and cheap ornaments. They were utterly improvident, extremely fond of gambling and all games of chance, as well as all sorts of trials of skill, such as horsemanship and marksmanship; of course, the necessary wager to make it interesting was never wanting. As a general rule, the greater part of the proceeds of their labor was squandered at the first rendezvous or trading-post which they reached, and it was of great importance to the trader to be the first to reach such a rendezvous, thus securing the greater part of this most profitable trade.

Very little is known of their lonely vigils and wanderings, with a companion or two, in the defiles of the mountains, and of the dangers and privations they have had to endure. How frequently their bones have been left to bleach on the arid plains, as the result of Indian hatred and hostility, without the rites of burial—their names, unhonored and unsung, will never be known. Certain tribes were the uncompromising enemies of the trappers, and when they had the misfortune to meet, they waged a relentless war, until one or the entire party left the country or was exterminated. It is true, the returns were sometimes enormous, and had they exercised ordinary economy, even for one season, they could have retired from the dangers and privations of the mountains with a competence; but had they done so, it is altogether likely that they would sooner or later have again fallen victim to its allurements.

It is at the rendezvous and fort that the free trapper is seen in his true character. Here is usually spent the whole of his year’s hard earnings in gambling, drinking, and finery. He wishes to establish the reputation of being a hale fellow, and he seldom fails so long as his money and credit last. Then he again returns to his lonely wanderings in the mountains, a sadder but not a wiser man, as the following year the same scene is enacted—provided he is so fortunate as to escape his treacherous enemies the Indians. The scenes presented at the mountain rendezvous in the early days must have been indeed wonderful, where hundreds of such characters were congregated; no pen, however clever, can do them full justice. The loss of life from other than natural causes from the years 1820 to 1840 cannot be estimated and will never be fully known. At each rendezvous, many former hale fellows were missing, never again to appear on this gay scene; their comrades recounted the manner of their death if known—their good traits were loyally lauded and their bad ones left untold—but the living did not take warning from these examples. Such was their life, hardships, dangers, and privations, also their pleasures—they lived only in the present, with little or no regard for the future. Irving gives the following extremely good description of them:

The influx of this wandering trade has had its effects on the habits of the mountain tribes. They have found the trapping of the beaver their most profitable species of hunting; and the traffic with the white man has opened to them sources of luxury of which they previously had no idea. The introduction of firearms has rendered them more 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 fur traders grand objects of profitable adventure. To waylay and harass a band of trappers with their pack-horses when embarrassed in the rugged defiles of the mountains, has become as favorite an exploit with the Indians as the plunder of a caravan to the Arab of the desert. The Crows and Blackfeet, who were such terrors in the path of the early adventurers to Astoria, still continue their predatory habits, but seem to have brought 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, and where to hover about them in winter-quarters.

The life of a trapper, therefore, is a perpetual state militant, and he must sleep with his weapons in his hands. A new order of trappers and traders, also, have grown out of this system of things. In the old times of the great North-west Company, when the trade in furs was pursued chiefly about the lakes and rivers, the expeditions were carried on in batteaux and canoes, The voyageurs or boatmen were the rank and file in the service of the trader, and even the hardy “men of the north,” those great rufflers and game birds, were fain to be paddled from point to point of their migrations.

A totally different class has now sprung up—“the Mountaineers,” the traders and trappers that scale the vast mountain chains, and pursue their hazardous vocations amidst their wild recesses. They move from place to place on horseback. The equestrian exercises, therefore, in which they are engaged, the nature of the countries they traverse, the vast plains and mountains, pure exhilarating in atmospheric qualities, seem to make them physically and mentally a more lively and mercurial race than the fur traders and trappers of former days, the self-vaunting “men of the north.” A man who bestrides a horse, must be essentially different from a man who cowers in a canoe. We find them, accordingly, hardy, little, vigorous, and active; extravagant in word, and thought, and deed; heedless of hard-ship; daring of danger; prodigal of the present, and thoughtless of the future.

A difference is to be perceived even between these mountain hunters and those of the lower regions along the waters of the Missouri. The latter, generally French Creoles, live comfortably in cabins or log-huts, well sheltered from the inclemencies of the seasons. They are within the reach of frequent supplies from the settlements; their life is comparatively free from danger, and from most of the vicissitudes of the upper wilderness. The consequence is that they are less hardy, self-dependent and game-spirited than the mountaineer. If the latter by chance comes among them on his way to and from the settlements, he is like the game-cock among the common roosters of the poultry-yard. Accustomised to live in tents, or to bivouac in the open air, he despises the comforts and is impatient of the confinement of the log-house. If his meal is not ready in season, he takes his rifle, hies to the forest or prairie, shoots his own game, lights his fire, 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 put him to mess with the common men, the hirelings of the establishment, but treat him as something 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 more enamored 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 times resembles a mania. In vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages beset his path; in vain may rocks, and precipices, and wintry torrents oppose his progress; let but a single track of a beaver meet his eye and he forgets all dangers and defies all difficulties. At times, he may be seen with his traps on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapid streams, amidst floating blocks of ice; at other times, he is to be found with his traps swung on his back clambering the most rugged mountains, scaling or descending the most frightful precipices, searching, by routes inaccessible to the horse, and never before trodden by white man, for springs and lakes unknown to his comrades, and where he may meet with his favorite game. Such is the mountaineer, the hardy trapper of the West; and such, as we have slightly sketched it, is the wild Robin Hood kind of life, with all its strange and motley populace, now existing in full vigor among the Rocky Mountains.