[The Life of Kit Carson by Edward S. Ellis]@TWC D-Link book
The Life of Kit Carson

CHAPTER VI
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CHAPTER VI.
The British and American Trapper--Hunting on the Laramie--The Deserters--The Vain Pursuit--Arrival of Friends--The Return Journey--The Night Alarm--The Attack Upon the Camp--Pursuit and Recovery of Horses.
A half century ago the vast region beyond the Rocky Mountains was comparatively unknown and unexplored.

Its general features of course were understood, but the interior was like the central portion of Australia or Africa.

Clarke and Lewis made their famous expedition to Oregon during the early days of the century, and helped to turn general attention in that direction.

Its growth and development since then is one of the wonders of the age.
But there was one class (if the word may be used), who never hesitated to penetrate the wildest and most dangerous recesses of the far West and Northwest: those were the hunters and trappers.

As we have already stated, the employees of the venerable and all embracing Hudson Bay Company ranged over British America and through Oregon, to which vast territory they possessed the clear legal right, besides which they and the trappers of the American Fur Company frequently trespassed on each others reserves, and not infrequently came in bloody collision with each other.
Far to the northward, the Indian drove his birch canoe across the silent Athabasca and Great Bear Lakes, on his way with his peltries to the distant factory or post of the Company; along the frozen shores of the lone Mackenzie (the only American river flowing into the Arctic Ocean), the trapper glided on his snow shoes, or with his sturdy dogs and sleigh, fought his way over the snowy wastes of Prince Rupert's Land; the brigades in their boats rounded the curves of the Saskatchewan, keeping time with their paddles to their own cheery songs; their camp fires were kindled in the land of the Assiniboine and they set their traps in the wildest recesses of the Rocky Mountains where the whirling snow storms almost carried them off their feet; but north of the dividing line, the hunters had little if anything to fear from the red men.


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