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, vast
plains and mountains, pure and 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, lithe, vigorous, and active; extravagant in word, and thought,
and deed; heedless of hardship; 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 and 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.
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