The Way to the West, and the Lives of Three Early Americans: Boone—Crockett—Carson

Transcriber's Note: The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
RED RIVER CARTS FROM PEMBINA.
THE WAY TO THE WEST AND THE LIVES OF THREE EARLY AMERICANS BOONE—CROCKETT—CARSON BY EMERSON HOUGH AUTHOR OF THE COVERED WAGON, Etc. ILLUSTRATED BY FREDERIC REMINGTON
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS—NEW YORK Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1903 The Bobbs-Merrill Company October
TO J. B. H.
CONTENTS
1834
IN THE YEAR 1834 IT BECAME NO LONGER PROFITABLE TO TRAP THE BEAVER
PREFACE
The customary method in writing history is to rely on chronological sequence as the only connecting thread in the narrative. For this reason many books of history are but little more than loosely bound masses of dates and events that bear no philosophical connection with one another, and therefore are not easily retained in the grasp of the average mind. History, to be of service, must be remembered.
A merely circumstantial mind may grasp and retain for a time a series of disconnected dates and events, but such facts do not appeal to that more common yet not less able type of intellect that asks not only when, but why, such and such a thing happened; that instinctively relates a given event to some other event, and thus goes on to a certain solidity and permanency in conclusions. Perhaps to this latter type of mind there may be appeal in a series of loosely connected yet really interlocking monographs upon certain phases of the splendid and stirring history of the settlement of the American West.