Glasgow Courier. — 1844-12-05 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

TRAPPER OF THE FAR WEST.  One finds these trappers or hunters in all the districts extending from the sources of the Columbia or Missouri, to those of the Arkansas and Red Rivers, and on the tributary straws of the Mississippi which run eastward from the Rocky Mountains. Their whole time is passed in the pursuit and destruction of the innumerable wild animal; which for hundreds and thousands of years have bred and multiplied in those remote steppes and plains. The daily and hourly dangers incurred by them must, one would think, occasionally cause them to turn their thoughts to • Supreme Being; but such is not the case. Their rifle is their god—their knife their patron saint—their strong right hand their only trust. The trapper shuns his fellow-men; sad the glance, with which he measures the stranger whom he encounters on his path, is oftener that of a murderer than • friend; the lore of gain is as strong with him as it is found to be in a civilised state of society, and the meeting of two trappers is generally the signal for the death of one of them. Re hates his white competitor for the much-prised beaver skins far more than he doer his Indian one: the latter he shoots down as coolly self he were a wolf or • bear; but when he drives his knife into the bruit of the former, it is with as much devilish joy as if he felt be were ridding mankind of as great an evil-doer as himself. The nourishment of the trapper, consisting for years together of buffalo's flesh—the strongest food that man can eat—and taken without bread or any other accompaniment, doubtless contributes to render him wild and inhuman, and to assimilate him in a certain degree to the savage animals by which he is surrounded. During an excursion that I made with some companions towards the upper part of the Red River, we met with several of these trappers; amongst others, with one weather-beaten old fellow, whose face and bare neck were tanned by sun and exposure to the colour of tortoise-shell. We bunted two day's in his company, without noticing anything remarkable about the E.; he cooked our meals, which consisted usually of a haunch nison or, buffalo's hump, instrncted us where to find gams, was aware of the approach of the latter even sooner than his huge wolf-dog, which never left his aide. It was only on the morning of the third dny, that we discovered something calculated to diminish our confidence in our new comrade. This was a number of lines and crosses upon the butt of his rifle; which gave us a DOW and not very favourable Insight into the man's character. These lines and crosses come after certain words rudely scratched with a knife.point, and formed a sort °flint, of which the following is • copy : Buffaloes—no number given, they being probably too numerous. Bears, nineteen—the number being indicated by nineteen strait strokes.  Wolves, thirteen—marked by oblique strokes. Bed underloppers, four—marked by four creases. White underloppere two—noted by two 'tars. Whilst we were examining this serious rotandae, and onayttuti ourselves to make out the molten of the "onderloppers? observed a grim smile stealing over the Feature, of the old tra, per. He said nothing, how.ver; drew the buffalo's bump be we. °oohing from nudge the hot sobers, took It opt of Um pins of bide  word  trap, Wl'