In order to acquire these important _data_ that they might be added
to the pages of American history and form a reliable record, it was
necessary that some brave, bold and determined man should become an
actor on the scenes and among the races described. Such an actor
has been, and yet is, Christopher Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky
Mountains; and, it is the experience, as well as the acts, of his
stirring life, which the following pages present.

In olden times there existed, in the Rocky Mountains, a race
familiarly known by the name of "Trappers and Hunters." They are now
almost extinct. Their history has not yet been written. Pen paintings,
drawn from the imagination, founded upon distant views of their
exploits and adventures, have occasionally served, as do legends,
to "adorn a tale." The volume now offered to the public, gives their
history as related by one whose name as a trapper and hunter of the
"Far West," stands second to none; by a man, who, for fifteen years,
saw not the face of a white woman, or slept under a roof; who, during
those long years, with his rifle alone, killed over two thousand
buffalo, between four and five thousand deer, antelope and elk,
besides wild game, such as bears, wild turkeys, prairie chickens,
etc., etc. in numbers beyond calculation. On account of their
originality, daring and interest, the real facts, concerning this race
of trappers and hunters, will be handed down to posterity as matters
belonging to history.

As is the case with the Indian, the race of the "Simon Pure Trapper"
is nearly run. The advance of civilization, keeping up its untiring
march to the westward, is daily encroaching upon their wild haunts and
bringing the day close at hand when warrior and trapper will depart