Jacket by Ralph Ray, Jr
For 300 years, across 3000 miles
of wilderness, American pushed
steadily westward until it
reached from ocean to ocean.
And always the vanguard of that
movement was the buckskin brigade-
nameless, lonely men who fought nature, beast, and Indian, to blaze the
trail for the pioneer. Wood runners,
rivermen, long hunters, fur traders, scouts, mountain men, protected only
by their wits and their long rifles, they led the way into the unknown.
This book is a tribute to them and
their deeds. It tells the stories of the
fishermen who landed on Cape
Breton, of the hunter who fed the Roanoke Colony, of the priest who visited the Hurons, of the fur traders who rediscovered Hudson Bay, of the scout who opened the Ohio country,
of the Indian chief who fought for his hunting ground, of the keelboatmen who conquered the Mississippi, of the free trapper who escaped from the Blackfeet, of the bullwhackers who freighted to Santa Fe, of the mountain
man who crossed the Rockies.
All of the stories are based on fact,
and the principal characters are either
real or typical of their kind.