fag-end to their territory
comprised between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains; for much
mischief might be caused by these violent and restless men, were they
compelled to remain in the bosom of social life. If, for example, _la
belle France_ had had such a fag-end or outlet during the various crises
that she has passed through in the course of the last fifty years, how
many of her great warriors and equally great tyrants might have lived
and died trappers! And truly, neither Europe nor mankind in general
would have been much the worse off, if those instruments of the greatest
despotism that ever disguised itself under the mask of freedom--the
Massenas, and Murats, and Davousts, and scores more of suchlike laced
and decorated gentry--had never been heard of.

One finds these trappers or hunters in all the districts extending from
the sources of the Columbia and Missouri, to those of the Arkansas and
Red Rivers, and on the tributary streams of the Mississippi which run
eastward from the Rocky Mountains. Their whole time is passed in the
pursuit and destruction of the innumerable wild animals, which for
hundreds and thousands of years have bred and multiplied in those remote
steppes and plains. They slay the buffalo for the sake of his hump, and
of the hide, out of which they make their clothing; the bear to have his
skin for a bed; the wolf for their amusement; and the beaver for his
fur. In exchange for the spoils of these animals they get lead and
powder, flannel shirts and jackets, string for their nets, and whisky to
keep out the cold. They traverse those endless wastes in bodies several
hundreds strong, and have often desperate and bloody fights with the
Indians. For the most part, however, they form themselves into parties
of eight or ten men, a sort of wild guerillas. These must rather be
called hunters than trappers; the genuine trapper limiting himself to
the society of one sworn friend, with whom he remains out for at least a
year, frequently longer; for it takes a considerable time to become
acquainted with the haunts of the beaver. If one of the two comrades
dies, the other remains in possession of the whole of their booty. The
mode of life that is at first adopted from necessity, or through fear of
the laws, is after a time adhered to from choice; and few of these men
would exchange their wild, lawless, unlimited freedom, for the most
advantageous position that could be offered them in a civilized coun