Out Of The Frying Pan

My name is Silas Horn.

I am a trapper, and one of the first to be known as a freetrapper, in the wilds known as the Rocky Mountains. Now, I have been called a lot of things in my life; Officer in the United States Navy, pirate, criminal, and prisoner. Even my guide and friend, Long Walker, calls me Wandering Dog. I could never tell if it was an insult or a compliment, but that didn't matter to me anyway.

But I digress.

I guess there's some truth in all these things but first and foremost, I love to see new places. If I were to give weight to any words to describe myself I would use 'gentleman adventurer', but that may be a bit of a stretch. I have traveled to places no white man has seen before, despite the adherent risks.

I was always this way.

Never one to feel the need to remain at home, even as a child I would fritter away the hours finding new places to play ranger in the woods near my home. As I grew older, the need to find and see new places only grew into an overwhelming drive to GO! I have seen mountains no white man ever has before! I have been to places only Indians dared go!

But now as I grow older and wiser, I wish for a place to call my own. A home where I can live my life as I choose and not beholden to some king, president, or governor of any kind! This modern life has become twisted and overrun with new-fangled inventions and machines that are supposed to make life easier for humankind. But to me, the wild places have always drawn me to them! The deafening silence of the open plains, or the roar of a furious sea. If there was somewhere to go to see something new, I went!

Well, now, even some of the wild places have become filled with the King's men. The East India Trading Company and the Hudson Bay Company are growing rich from the work of men like me, while we remain poor. Well, that will simply not do for me! I will go further, I will go higher, and I will assume the risk of danger so that I may remain free!

Free trappers like me work for ourselves and we do it with a lust for adventure and the sheer will to survive even the harshest climates to do what we love! For some, it is about the money they can make from not having to use all their profits to resupply from the Company's stores. For others, it is an escape from a shady past. And for a few, it is an opportunity to turn one's life around and be someone new!

But for me, I love the adventure! What will I encounter around the next bend, or over the next ridge? Now that I have found these Rocky Mountains, I want to see them all! Maybe, just maybe, among my adventures there I will find a place that I can finally call home!