"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, seem to make them physically and mentally a more lively race than the fur-traders and trappers of former days. 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, in thought, and deed; heedless of hardship, daring of danger, prodigal of the present, and thoughtless of the future. "The American trapper stands by himself, and is peerless for the service of the wilderness. Drop him in the midst of the prairie, or in the heart of the mountains, and he is never at a loss. He notices every landmark, can retrace his route through the most monotonous plains or the most perplexed labyrinths of the mountains. No danger nor difficulty can appal him, and he scorns to complain under any privation." Behind the trapper, though it might be at a great distance, came the backwoodsman. This man was a product of American growth, of continued expansion of territory, but never the voluntary agent of civilization. He was more like the foam blown from the crest of its ever-advancing wave. The true backwoodsman was one, who, like Daniel Boone, fled at the approach of his fellow-men. He was a recluse from choice. He has always hung on to the skirts of civilization, though he scorned to become part of it, or profit by its advantages or comforts. This man made a little clearing, built himself a rude cabin of logs, and lived by hunting. When he first heard of a new purchase he hastened to it, but as soon as another was made he shouldered his rifle and his pack, and without regret turned his back upon the home he had scarcely made habitable when this new fit of restlessness sent him forth in search of another. In this manner, his lonely clearing made smooth the way for the coming settler. Thus the backwoodsman's life was passed far from the haunts of men. Free from all desire to better his condition in any ennobling sense, he had no higher aspiration than to live apart, no thought of becoming an instrumentality in the hand of progress. In his habits and way of life he was more like an Indian than a civilized being, for the only school he had been educated in was nature's, and his tastes or instincts led him rather downward than upward in the scale of human effort. [Illustration: AN EMIGRANT'S CAMP.]