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 these 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, has grown out of this
system of things. In the old times of the great Northwest
Company, when the trade in furs was pursued chiefly about the
lakes and rivers, the expeditions were carried on in batteaux and
canoes.
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