George Ruxton

He was a lieutenant in the British Army, received a medal for gallantry from Queen Isabella II of Spain, was a hunter and explorer and published papers and books about his travels to Africa, Canada, Mexico and the United States.

He became a lancer under Diego de León and received the Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand from Queen Isabella II for his gallantry at Belascoáin.

Intrigued by the lives of Native Americans and trappers on the open prairie,[1][3] Ruxton sold his lieutenant commission in the British Army and became a hunter in Upper Canada.

[4] From January through May, 1847 (Ruxton, 1848) hunted along the front range of Colorado, visited with mountain men and endured an extremely cold winter while mostly in the company of his horse Panchito and two mules that he had acquired earlier in Mexico.

[5] He wrote of his experiences in the Far West: I must confess that the very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of the Far West; and I never recall, but with pleasure, the remembrance of my solitary camp in the Bayou Salade [Salt valley of South Park, Colorado], with no friend near me more faithful than my rifle, and no companions more sociable than my good horse and mules, or the attendant cayute which nightly serenaded us.

With a plentiful supply of dry pine-logs on the fire, and its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the valley far and near, and, pipe in mouth, watch the blue smoke as it curled upwards, building castles in the vapoury wreaths, and, in the fantastic shapes it assumed, peopling the solitude with figures of those far away ...