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 and beavers,
until at length a bullet or arrow would end all. One after another
would be missed by some friend or trader at the autumn rendezvous,
reported killed by the Indians, and - forgotten. Some men of this
class have, from superior skill or fortune, escaped every danger,
lived to a good old age, and earned fame, and, by their knowledge of
the topography of the vast West then unexplored, have been able to
render important service to the country; but most of them laid their
bones in the wilderness after a few short, keen seasons. So great
were the perils that beset them, the average length of the life of a
"free trapper" has been estimated at less than five years. From the
Columbia waters beaver and beaver men have almost wholly passed away,
and the men once so striking a part of the view have left scarcely the
faintest sign of their existence. On the other hand, a thousand
meadows on the mountains tell the story of the beavers, to remain
fresh and green for many a century, monuments of their happy,
industrious lives.
But there is a little airy, elfin animal in these woods, and in all
the evergreen woods of the Pacific Coast, that is more influential and
interesting than even the beaver.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 133 of 159
Words from 68819 to 69327
of 82482
