Ruxton (1821-48) was a British explorer and travel writer. He received the Laureate Cross of St Ferdinand for his gallantry during the Spanish Civil War of 1833-39, then served as a Lieutenant in the British Army in Canada. Intrigued by the lives of Native Americans and the trappers on the open prairie he sold his commission and became a hunter in Upper Canada. His travels later took him to Africa and then to Mexico, the Rocky Mountains and the American West. Life in the Far West was originally published as a series of articles in Blackwood's Magazine before appearing in book form following Ruxford's untimely death in 1848 aged 27 as a result of epidemic dysentery.