I found the above article earlier; it’s similar to this one: http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf
Though he’s not a student of the Austrian School, David Dary wrote a book, Entrepreneurs of the Old West, that goes more in depth describing the lives of the traders, trappers, gold prospectors, merchants, and other businessmen who settled the American frontier.
For example, “The Sante Fe Trail”, which was a rather tortorous trade route (travellers were reported at least once to have resorted to drinking buffalo blood to quench their thirst) that was profitable enough (around 2000% profits in early years) to entice people to engage in trade between Missouri and New Mexico.