New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-08-30

S0'4@S' H. Appleton q 90.
Most Americans. we believe, think Of the trap
Per as Of a rare and isolated figure, wandering
lonely through the painless wood. He generally
went forth alone, II is true, but he was not alone
IN his trade. There were in reality some thou
sands Of these daring fellows attached to the
fortunes of the great fur companies whose ex-
istence began in the seventeenth century and
has centred to-day in only one, and that the
Oldest The Hudsons Bay Company keeps up
its trading in the North as il did three hundred
years ago, when brilliant Prince Rupert be-
came its first governor. Great fortunes have
risen out OF the work of the trapper. but where
that work most counted in the opening up
Of the wilderness. Therein he was a factor
whose Importance must not be underestimate.
Miss Laut has told his story with enthusiasm,
and therefore wildly. She knows the life of
the Northern woods and has brought its at
mosphere into her book few writers of the
period could do. She is rather too histrionic in
her manner now and them but this is quickly
forgotten in the real tragedy OF her narrative.
For it is full of tragedy. Death in its most
horrible shapes lurked in the wilderness, and the
trapper never knew when it coming
Countless enemies waited for him, and any day
his fate might be that of Drouillard, struck
down wheeling his horse round and round as
shield literally torn to pieces by the eXasperated
savages, and eaten according to the hideous
superstition that the flesh Of a brave man i'm
parts bravery" The record of the men sent out
by the fur companies is largely one of agony, in
which the Indian had hand-the Indian often
urged on by rival traders. There was no safety
in numbers, as the end of Of the overland
expeditions TO Astoria proved:
Why a party of sixty-four well armed, well
rFoyisioned men failed in doing what any two
TOgGge1iTs trappers were doing every day can
emily be explained by comparison 20 a bronco IN
a blizzard Give the half wild prairie creature
the bit and it will carry its rider through any
storm Jerk it TO right, to left, east and west,
till il loses its confidence, and the bronco IS as
helpless its rider. So with the r0ydgcuf.
Crossing the mountains alone IN MS own way
he could eVade famine and danger and attack
by lifting a brother traders cache-hidden pro-
visfons-or tarrying in Indian lodges till game
crossed his path. marrying the daughter OF
4 hostile chief, or creeping so quietly through
the woods neither game nor Indian scout coulo
detect his presence. With noisy caValcade OF
siXty-four all this impossible. Broken INTO
attachments, weak, enaciated, stripped nahed'
on the verge of dementia and cannballsn now
shouting to each other across d roaring S"NTI'
now sinking in despair before a blind wall the
overlanders finally reached Astoria, after nearly
q years WandeTlngs.
The French trapper Of the early days was
often The son Of a noble family-"the fur coun-
Try was TO the young French nobility what
treasure ship was 10 a pirate" Sometimes, his
fortune made he stayed in the wilderness,
maintaining rude state among half Wild re-
tainers, a grotesqUe parody on his ancestors IN
= chateau Of old France. The French uapper
FIRST led the way into the Western wilderness,
and was then as now, 4 say spendthrift. The
author tells US that he and is as different
from the saving English trapper as the game
ster IS from the merchant. Most of his profits
were left at the gaming table, and the next
hunting season found him penniless. He was
a man Of the lower country, the river valleys
and plains. If one went TO the mountains for
a term Of years. says Miss Laut when he
came out he was no longer the SNUG, incident
laughing, chatting rOydgeur. The great silences
Of q life hard as the iron age had worked a
change. To begin with, the man had become
horseInan q climber, a scout, a fighter of In
dams and clements; lank and thin and 1.-The
silent and logged and relentless" There are
rerls in the mountains that it took exceptional
qualities to face conditions that bred heroism-
that bred We are told, the purely American
-x-p.s Of trapper One of the most successful
oC these leading rangers in the earlier half OF
The last century was Vanderburgh, West
Pointer He was a dauntless figure in the dl1-
Gcllties between rival fur companies and an
Indian fighter bitterly hated by the savages he
lad defeated in battle The end Of him repeated
an Oft told story. In encounter with the
Ila.}lfeet he was shot and torn to pieces;
The moor remnants of humanity were thrown
INTO the river. As for the Indian trapper, his