camp. In return for this protection, and for their camp keeping, they
are bound to dispose of all the beaver they take, to the trader who
commands the camp, at a certain rate per skin; or, should they prefer
seeking a market elsewhere, they are to make him an allowance, of from
thirty to forty dollars for the whole hunt."

There is an inferior order, who, either from prudence or poverty, come
to these dangerous hunting grounds without horses or accoutrements, and
are furnished by the traders. These, like the hired trappers, are bound
to exert themselves to the utmost in taking beaver, which, without
skinning, they render in at the trader's lodge, where a stipulated price
for each is placed to their credit. These though generally included in
the generic name of free trappers, have the more specific title of skin
trappers.

The wandering whites who mingle for any length of time with the savages
have invariably a proneness to adopt savage habitudes; but none more so
than the free trappers. It is a matter of vanity and ambition with them
to discard everything that may bear the stamp of civilized life, and to
adopt the manners, habits, dress, gesture, and even walk of the Indian.
You cannot pay a free trapper a greater compliment, than to persuade
him you have mistaken him for an Indian brave; and, in truth, the
counterfeit is complete. His hair suffered to attain to a great length,
is carefully combed out, and either left to fall carelessly over
his shoulders, or plaited neatly and tied up in otter skins, or
parti-colored ribands. A hunting-shirt of ruffled calico of bright dyes,
or of ornamented leather, falls to his knee; below which, curiously
fashioned legging, ornamented with strings, fringes, and a profusion of
hawks' bells, reach to a costly pair of moccasons of the finest Indian
fabric, richly embroidered with beads. A blanket of scarlet, or some