Mountain Wild

 Introduction

In the year "Mountain Wild" begins, the American frontier was still in its infancy. The exploits of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were fresh in the hearts and minds of Americans, for their legends were still relatively new. These famous frontiersmen led the way for a nation expanding ever westward, and those who followed in their footsteps were eager to prove themselves equal to the challenge.

A certain breed of men picked up where America's early frontiersmen left off. They were the mountain men. Rocky Mountain trappers hunted the streams in search of beaver, and explored lands that had never before seen white men.

From about 1824 to 1840, mountain men hired by fur companies formed brigades that trekked deep into the wilderness in pursuit of pelts. The furs they caught were later shipped back to "polite society" and turned into hats and all manner of goods.

The few who did not work for fur companies were called free trappers. These mountain men answered to none but themselves, and like their company counterparts, often became as wild and untamed as the Rocky Mountain wilderness in which they lived and died.

This story begins with a free trapper.

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