Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-09-14
A TYPE OF MOUNTAINEERS.

Inere are many men IN Lne ROCKY MOuH-
tains whose lives are passed in wandering
through the dense forests and frosty valleys of
these rugged highlands. During tho summer
they tow with heavy rope an obstinate donkey,
preferably white, sad-faced donkey, or a wise
pony, laden with provisions and the tools used
in prospecting for placer mines. During the
arctic winters they glide over the surface of the
deep snow OH lorg, narrow boards, curved in
front as sled runners, and cOncave on the un-
der side, Old-fashiOned skates known as Nor
Wegian snow shoes, visiting their beaver traps;
or they tramp over the barren, windswept
foothills, searching for the bodies Of such
greedy, credulous wolves or bears as may have
eaten Of the feast Of strychnine-impregnated
meat prepared for them.
These men have no families. They are pos
sessed of spirit Of unrest. The desire for
change, the love of solitude, rather than the
hope Of gain, animates them. They seldom
search for leads indeed, they have hearty
contempt for hard rock mines and miners.
They like to live alone in rude hut standing
under spreading pine by the bank OF noun
tain trout brook. They will not work for 9TH
er men unless hunger compels them, or power
ty has entailed dearth of cartridges. They
trap, they hunt, they placer mine, they pros
pect. They undertake long, arduous tours,
apparently amlessly through the forests.
They are always going to the Snowy Range.
They build huts in localities widely separated.
On the shore of Trout Lake, lying behind the
mighty second range, is one hut. At the base
of the perpetual snow, where the elk Craze
during the summer, will I've another. On the
banks of the creek where beaver are numer-
Gus, the creek being regarded as a private
game preserve, will be another. And in the
valley where he winters, and which he claims
is "a good meat and wolf ground will be an
other hut. In these men the qualities Of hum
ter, trapper, gold miner, and tramp are com
bined They know the mountains thoroughly
and love them. Their earnings depend on the
price of fur and on the yield of their placer
mines. Their happiness depends only on their
freedom. Their annual earnings will proDa-
bly, average about $400 each l know an in
stance where they reached $4,000; but this
was winter of a famous beaver catch, on
Montana creek, where the jaws of a trap had
never before snapped, and where the wolves
were hungry for strychnine. The unlucky, or
it may be the lazy, may not earn more than
enough to buy the cheapest clothing and
scanty supply of bacon and flour for the Win
ter's use. This they supplement with gener-
erous rations of elk, deer, antelope, and Dea-
yer meat indeed, it is on the flesh of game
animals these men generally depend for food.
Successful or unsuccessful in trapping and
mining, they enter upon the winter in about
the same condition of financial bankruptcy.
If successful, after selling their furs and gold
dust, and buying supplies for the winters use,
as they tersely express it, they "Go in bald
headed for whisky" While engaged in the
pleasures of going in, they are ready to fight
with any one who encroaches on their freedom
of personal action. When sober, they are an
earnest quiet people, brave of blood rather
than combative. There is no kinship between
Il sinewy, quiet-spoken mOuntaineer and the
buckskin-clad, long-haired, whiskey-bloated
fraud who swaggers around frontier towns,
and whose existence is a never-endlng search
for verdant tenderfeet, to whom he talks as
the hero of dime novel, hoping to be reward
ed by the gift of drink of liquor for the re-
cital of mythical adventures in killing Indians
and grizzly bears, and the display of the lying
record of his prowess notched on his pistol or
rifle stock, the notches having been cut while
the fraud lay behind cowshed hiding from a
dunnng dry goods clerk who had rashly trust,
ed him for the fashy red handkerchief tied
around his whisky-eroded gullet. The former
are seldom seen by Eastern tourists. The lat
ter obtrudes himself on them. During the
summer the former are in the mountains, min
ing in lonely gulches, or hunting elk just be-
low the snow line, or prospecting for trapping
ground. The latter rouse themselves with
difficulty from drunken stupor to swagger
around the railroad stations when the passen-
ger trains arrive. They are prospecting for
tenderfeet.