Coulter was one of the hunters on the Lewis and Clark trip. Two weeks from St. Louis on the return he left the expedition and joined with two Frenchmen on a fur trapping venture the eventually led to his famous “Coulter’s Run”.
For sheer grit and determination you have to read about Hugh Glass, a trapper who was mauled by a grizzly bear and then left for dead by his companions, Jim Bridger and John Fitzgerald.
He crawled from somewhere on the headwaters of the Missouri back to Fort Kiowa, hundreds of miles distant through Indian country.
After recovering from his wounds, he went looking for the men who left him for revenge.
It’s a helluva story.
I think the two definitive books are probably Hugh Glass, Mountain Man and Lord Grizzly.