Part I: Trapper- Chapter 1,2 and 3 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 1- Jim Bridger's family moves out west to Missouri and establishes a farm near St. Louis and the Missouri River. When Jim is 14-years-old, his mother and then his father and brother die. He gets a job ferrying people and goods on a Mississippi flat boat. Later, Jim is apprenticed to a St. Louis blacksmith. Jim learns to shoe horses, make traps and other iron goods. St. Louis is then half-French, with Spaniards from Mexico, French-Canadians, and Indians coming in to trade. Jim hears of and sees the heroes of the frontier that are fur-trappers and Indian fighters. By 1819, when Jim is 15 years-old, a steamboat is making regular runs on the Mississippi. After a few years, Jim's apprenticeship with the blacksmith is nearly over. He is thinking over his future and how...