Hard to Kill — Robert M. Johnson

The life of frontiersmen like Sam Ogden is a constant struggle with the elements, changes in season, altitude, animal migrations, and human greed. In this first volume of the Sam Ogden series the reader is introduced to the initiation of the young Mountain Man. Many were to work in the beaver trade between 1820 and 1850 in the Rocky Mountain territories. Some would make a life of it, survive because they were “Hard to Kill.” Men like John Colter and Hugh Glass showed what it took to be a Mountain Man. The author's first Mountain Man Series followed the evolution of Jeremiah Warner as he made the transitions and adjustments necessary as the frontier changed. The Sam Ogden character begins his mountain life at a younger age, finding it a difficult place to face the inner battles with greed and lust and high adventure. Yet the young man endures and to some extent thrives, because he is indeed, Hard to Kill. The first twenty years of the nineteenth century in America was marked by an intense spirit of national pride and frontier determination. While future President James Monroe was negotiating the Louisiana Purchase in Paris, his mentor, then President Thomas Jefferson was envisioning a nation from sea to sea, one nation. The struggle between slave and non-slave states was already shaping the politics of the young nation. The War of 1812 would be a stark reminder of just how fragile the American Union still was. The story of Samuel Ogden Leonard begins in 1820, the third year of the presidency of James Monroe, amid the flowering of the beaver trade in the Rocky Mountain Territory. At sixteen years old, Sam was looking for adventure, escape and new horizons. Springfield Illinois didn't provide enough incentive to make him want to stay down on the farm. A fur trading expedition was made to order, and young Sam signed on eagerly. His life became part of the legend and lore of the great Rocky Mountain Wilderness, Sam became a frontiersman. Mountain Men were known for their hard way of life, their innate toughness and their uncanny ability to just SURVIVE. “Hard to Kill” is the story of young Sam Ogden, and his first journey into the wilderness as part of the Jacob Astor Fur Trading Company, a dozen men ready to take on the hardships of the daunting beaver trade.