A BIG BEAVER MEADOW
The next morning dawned bright and clear. Jack and Hugh were both up
before sunrise, and while Hugh was kindling the fire, trying to make
wet wood burn, Jack went down to the stream to get a bucket of water.
He was just about to stoop over to fill his bucket, when suddenly he
saw something swimming along under the water, and placing his bucket on
the ground, he fired at the object just as it passed in front of him.
The stream was narrow and deep, so that he shot almost directly down
into the water, and as soon as the splash made by the ball ceased, he
could see something struggling below him, and reaching down into the
water he caught the animal by a foot, and lifting it out threw it on
the bank. It was a little beaver.
Jack had seen plenty of beaver hides, but never before a living beaver,
and this seemed to him very small, and, judging by what Hugh had
previously told him, he concluded that it was a young one. It would not
weigh more than ten or twelve pounds.
Filling his bucket, he carried his water in one hand and the beaver in
the other, with the rifle under his arm, up to the tent, and surprised
Hugh by throwing the beaver on the ground.
"Well," said Hugh, "is that what you shot at? I wondered whether you
could have run on a deer down by the creek, or maybe an antelope.
This is a good piece of meat you've brought in. Beaver is first-class
eating, and this is a nice, fat, tender kitten. About three months old,
I should say, by the size, and it's mighty early for kittens as big as
this. You'll get your first lesson in skinning a beaver to-day, and
your first taste of beaver meat, too. Won't it be, or did you ever eat
beaver when you were with the Blackfeet?"
"No, Hugh," said Jack, "I don't think I ever tasted it. I'd like to."
"We'll have beaver tail soup, too," said Hugh. "This tail's only a
little one, but it'll be enough to give us a taste. Beaver tail used to
be considered great meat by the old-time trappers, something like back
fat among the Indians. I never cared much about beaver tail. It's too
oily for my taste. I should think those Indians we saw last summer up
in British Columbia would like it, but I like something a little more
solid.
"Lay that kitten in the shade," he went on, "and after we've got
through our breakfast we'll stretch that bear hide. You must remember
that that is like so much cash in our pocket. We've got to save all the
fur we get this trip, and no fur is ever safe until it's good and dry."
As they sat at breakfast, they looked toward the mountains. The morning
was still, and instead of the flames and the onrushing clouds of smoke
which they had seen the day before, there were now only a few smoke
wreaths lazily curling up toward the sky at occasional points on the
mountain side.
"Yes," said Hugh, as he waved his knife toward the range, "I reckon
that storm last night put out that fire. In the first place it wet all
the timber, green and dry, and then it wet all the dead underbrush and
the needles and dry branches with which the ground is covered. I think
everything got a good soaking, and I believe that now the fire will go
out. Anyway, I hope so."
"I suppose you have no more idea than I have how the fire got started?"
asked Jack.
"No," said Hugh, "no man can tell about that. A fire may get started in
forty ways. Usually, it's some fellow goes off and leaves his campfire
burning, and then a puff of wind comes up and blows some of the coals
into some dry grass or something that catches fire easy, or else the
Indians may set fire to the timber just for the purpose of driving the
game into some big stretch of country where it is easy to hunt it. Of
course, Indians get the credit for a whole lot of fires that they never
set, and I believe that half the fires are started by white men, just
from carelessness, like throwing down a lighted match, or chucking away
a cigarette that will burn for ten or fifteen minutes. On the prairie,
of course, lots of fires are started by the railroad. The sparks from
the locomotive fall among dry grass. Sometimes in the timber lightning
starts a fire. There are lots of ways in which the forests can be
burned, and as long as there's so much forest, and it's nobody's
business to look after it, of course, these fires will keep burning
year after year."
"Well now, son," said Hugh, "after they had finished eating, if you'll
get another bucket of water I'll wash the dishes, and then we can
stretch that bear hide."
Jack brought another bucket of water, which Hugh set on the fire, and
while it was heating he directed Jack to unlash the bear hide and to
drag it out a little away from camp. After this had been done, he sent
him down to look along the stream to see if he could find any birch or
alder brush, telling him if he could do so to get enough branches to
make thirty or forty wooden pins. Taking the ax, Jack went down the
stream and could find neither birch nor alder. He did find, however, a
thicket of small ash saplings, and cutting down half a dozen of these
he put them on his back and dragged them back to camp.
"Couldn't find any birch?" said Hugh. "Well, I don't know as I'm much
surprised. It's pretty well south for birch, but that makes better
pins than 'most anything else. However, this ash will have to do, I
reckon." He took the saplings and with the ax cut them into lengths of
about eight or ten inches, and then taking the thickest ones he split
them.
Then he said to Jack: "Get out your knife now, son, and help me whittle
pegs. We want quite a lot of them, for I would like to stretch this
hide nicely, and take it in in good shape."
For half or three-quarters of an hour the two were busily employed
whittling down and pointing pins, and they had a large pile of them
before Hugh declared that there were enough. They carried the pins over
to where the bear skin lay and threw them on the ground; then turning
the hide flesh side up they stretched it as nearly square as possible,
and then with their jack-knives went round its border, cutting holes
half an inch long in the margin of the hide at intervals of about six
inches. When these had all been cut, the hide was again spread out, and
Hugh, with the ax, drove two pins through holes, one in each side of
the neck, and then, stretching the hide to its full length, drove two
more in holes each about a foot on either side of the tail. Then two
pins were driven at one side of the hide between fore and hind leg, and
two on the other side, between fore and hind leg. The hide now was held
in position, and going about it, Hugh, with great care, drove in his
pins, stretching the hide so that it was nearly square, though a little
longer from head to tail than from side to side. Of course, the four
legs and the head made the square irregular, but, on the whole, Hugh
declared, after he had finished, that it was a very good job.
"I shouldn't have stretched this hide quite so large, son," he said,
"if it hadn't been so very well furred. Usually the hair is thin on the
flanks, and if you stretch a hide much you get places on either flank
just in front of the hind-legs where there is scarcely any hair at
all, and a bear hide that shows up like that never brings a good price.
You notice, though, that on this hide the fur is just about as good on
the belly as it is on the back. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if your
uncle bought this hide himself, instead of letting us sell it to some
fur buyer.
"Now, I don't want the sun to burn it," he went on, "so we'll just go
down to the creek and get a lot of willow brush and make a shade for
it. If the sun shines all day on this fat it will more than half cook
it, and that will spoil the hide."
Hugh and Jack went down to the stream, and cutting a lot of the
green-leafed willows, brought them up and so arranged them that the
direct rays of the sun were kept from the hide.
"Never dry a hide in the sun," said Hugh; "always in the shade. Let the
wind and the dryness in the air take up the moisture for you. Then your
hides will always sell well."
"Well, son," said Hugh, when the job of stretching the hide and shading
it was ended, "do you feel pretty wolfish?"
"Yes," said Jack, "I believe I'm ready for dinner."
"All right," said Hugh, "we'll skin that little beaver, and roast him
for our dinner. If we have any luck trapping you'll have plenty of
skinning to do before we get back, and I guess you'll be pretty sick of
it."
Returning to the camp they took the beaver kitten to the shade of one
of the cottonwood trees, and Hugh showed Jack how to skin it.
"You split it," said Hugh, "from the chin right straight down the
middle of the belly to the root of the tail, and then take off the skin
just as you would with any other animal. You must have a whetstone by
you and keep your knife sharp, and be careful in your cutting so that
you make no holes in the hide. At the same time you must skin close to
the hide, and not leave any fat on it. When you get to the legs, cut
the skin all around just above the feet on fore and hind legs, and at
the tail cut all around the bone, just above where the scales begin. In
skinning around the eyes, see that you don't cut the eyelids, and when
you get to the ears, cut them off close to the hide on the inside. Now,
go ahead and see what you can do."
Jack split the beaver as directed, and carefully worked back the hide,
first on one side and then on the other. It was slow business. In his
effort not to cut holes in the skin he made short cuts, and the peeling
off of the hide seemed to go very slowly. However, he worked it along
with much patience until he got to the legs and the tail, and cut them
around, as Hugh had instructed.
Meantime, Hugh had gone off and cut some long willow sprouts, and
returning to where Jack sat, occupied himself in making a circular
hoop, which, he told Jack, was to stretch the skin on. He bent a long
twig into a circle, and with the slender branches on the end tied the
smaller and larger ends together. By this time Jack had the beaver
about half skinned, and Hugh, drawing his knife, took hold of one side
of the hide and helped, and in a very few minutes the carcass was free
and lying on the grass, while beside it lay the skin, flesh side up.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "that is a pretty good job, considering it's
the first beaver you ever skinned. It will be a good practice for you.
You see, if we should ever be lucky enough to get half a dozen beaver
in a morning it will take us about all day long to skin them."
"Whew!" said Jack, as he stood up and stretched his cramped limbs,
"that's something like work. I guess most fellows, when they think
of trapping, think only of how good they feel when they catch their
beaver, and how good they feel when they sell the skins. They don't
remember how much work it takes to get the skins ready for market."
"That's so, son," said Hugh, "but then, I guess that's true about 'most
everything in life. The miner thinks only about the rich haul that he
is going to make; he doesn't reckon on the number of hours that he's
got to swing a pick or a sledge or hold a drill before he strikes pay
streak. He just thinks of striking it rich, and then getting the money
for his mine. There's lots of human nature in all of us.
"Well, now," he went on, "the first thing we want to do is to go
down to the creek and get rid of some of this grease that we have
accumulated, and then we can come back and cook our dinner."
It took a lot of scrubbing with soap and sand to free themselves from
the oil of the bear and the beaver, and the smell of the grease they
could not get rid of. When they had returned to the tent Hugh sent Jack
to cut a long, green, forked stick. Sharpening this at its larger end,
he drove it firmly into the ground in such a position that it would
overhang the fire. He tied a stout cord to the hind-legs of the little
beaver, built up his fire of dry cottonwood, and let it burn down to
good, red coals, and then hung the beaver to the fork of a green stick
so that it swung directly over the coals. Then he told Jack to get a
long, green, willow twig, and from time to time to give the beaver's
carcass a twirl, so that it would constantly keep turning over the
fire. Then Hugh himself began preparations for the rest of the dinner,
which, after all, consisted only of bread and coffee. The hot coals
soon caused the grease to drip from the meat, which slowly twirled
over the fire, and by the time Hugh had baked his bread and cooked his
coffee he declared that the meat ought to be done. It was taken from
the fire and a slash with a knife showed that it was cooked through.
Hugh divided it into two pieces, and putting it on two tin plates, gave
one to Jack and took one himself.
"Now, son," he said, "try this meat, and see how you like it. Most of
us think that kitten is pretty good food. Of course, it isn't like fat
cow, or even like mountain sheep or elk, but to my mind it's quite as
good as any bird or fish that there is."
For some time Jack's mouth was so full that he could not comment on the
dinner, but, after a time, he declared in response to a question by
Hugh, that the meat was "prime." "But what is this queer, half-bitter
taste that it has, Hugh?" he asked.
"Why, son, that's extract of cottonwood and willow bark. Don't you know
that is what the beaver feed on, and, of course, the flesh tastes of
it? This little fellow is not very strong, but I've sometimes eaten old
beaver that was so bitter that you really didn't want to eat much of
it."
"Well," said Jack, "this is about the tenderest meat that I've ever
eaten, and I like the bitter flavor."
"Yes," said Hugh, "it's mighty nice, and then this fellow is so young
that you don't have to mind the ribs at all; you can chew them right up
and swallow them down."
"Well," said Jack, "I say it's prime, and I hope we'll have lots more
beaver meat before we go in."
"No doubt we will," said Hugh; "but no doubt, also, it will not be
as good as this has been. It's not every day that one gets a kitten
beaver, and it's mighty poor policy to kill them. You see this little
bit of a hide isn't worth anything, whereas, if the kitten had been
allowed to grow a year more the hide would have been worth, maybe, four
or five dollars. Now it isn't worth more than seventy-five cents."
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "if I had known that perhaps I wouldn't have
shot it, but you see, I didn't know that kitten ought not to be
killed, and if I had known about it I had no time to think."
"No," said Hugh; "it was all right to kill this one, but I'm just
telling you so that after this you'll know about kittens. We try always
to set our traps so as to catch only the old beaver. Of course, Indians
will sometimes tear down a dam and kill all the beaver in a pond, but
then Indians haven't much idea of looking out for the future. I say,
kill what old beaver you can and leave the young ones to grow up. If
you don't get them next year somebody else will, and we'll hope that
whoever does will have sense enough to spare the young ones."
When dinner was over and the dishes washed, Hugh told Jack to bring
him the little beaver's hide and the willow hoop that he had made, and
then after cutting holes all around the margin of the hide, he took a
string and passed it through one of the holes, around the hoop, through
another hole and around the hoop again, and so went all around the skin
until it was fairly and evenly stretched on the willow hoop.
"There, son," he said to Jack, "that is the way to stretch a beaver
hide. Now hang this up somewhere in the brush where the sun can't get
at it, nor the wolves and coyotes, either, and by to-morrow morning it
will be dry enough so that we can fold it and put it in the pack."
Jack soon found a good place in the shade near the tent and hung the
skin up, well out of the reach of any animals that might be prowling
about.
When he had returned to the tent, Hugh had about finished washing the
dishes, and Jack wiped them and they were put away in a corner of the
tent.
"Hugh," said Jack, "you told me to hang the beaver skin where the
animals could not get at it, but what about that bear skin out there?
May not some of the animals trouble that to-night?"
"Not so, son; the smell of the bear skin ought rather to frighten off
the animals. At the same time I haven't very much confidence in the
miserable coyotes that this country seems to be full of, so I am going
to put a scare out around that hide to-night, and to-morrow morning you
will see that nothing has disturbed it."
"Well, I shall be mighty glad to see what you do to it, Hugh," said
Jack.
"Oh," said Hugh, "there is nothing special about it. I'm going to
protect that hide by taking advantage of the cunning of the coyote. He
is always on the lookout for traps and snares of one kind or another,
and he won't go close to where he thinks there is a trap. Now, if I put
four sticks in the ground at the corner of that bear skin, and run a
little string from the tops of these four sticks all around the hide,
the coyotes will not pass under that string, because they'll think that
maybe it's some kind of a trap to catch them. You see, the coyotes are
like some men you have heard of; sometimes they are a little too smart."
When Hugh had finished his pipe Jack said, "What shall we do this
afternoon, Hugh? You were going to visit this beaver meadow this
morning if we hadn't had that bear skin to attend to. Is there time
enough for us to go down there now?"
"Plenty of time," said Hugh. "I was just going to propose it. There's
an awful big stretch of beaver work here and I guess that a great deal
of it has been abandoned. We want to find out where the beaver are now,
and when we've learned that and something about their ways, we can get
out our traps. If you like, I'll go down with you now and look for
ponds that have beaver in them."
"All right," said Jack; "I'm ready."
"Well," said Hugh, "let's go on now, and I reckon this is as good a
time as any to christen those rubber boots that we bought in Laramie.
We are likely to find it pretty wet down there, and I don't care to
take a horse in those thick willows until I find out a little about
them myself. An old beaver meadow is a mighty mean place to take
horses. There are bogs and beaver sloughs and old abandoned beaver
holes, and it's easy for a horse to fall down, and sometimes mighty
hard to get him up again."
Hugh and Jack donned their rubber boots, and taking their rifles,
started down toward the main stream. The meadow here was miles in width
and it was quite uncertain how far they could go. As well as they could
see, much of the meadow was overgrown with tall willows, but on the
other hand, there seemed to be many open, grassy meadows.
Before plunging into the willows they followed along the edge for some
little distance and at last Hugh said, "Let's turn in here, son, there
seems to be a game trail running in the direction we should go." Sure
enough, they found a well-traveled and dry game trail which showed that
last autumn it had been traveled by bands of elk, for the bark was
rubbed off the willows as high as Hugh's head, where great horns of the
bulls had forced the stems of the brush apart on either side of the
trail. The way led just in the direction they wanted to go, that is,
across the valley, and ten or fifteen minutes' brisk tramping brought
them to the edge of a green, grassy meadow of considerable extent. Just
as they reached the edge of the willows Hugh paused and motioned with
his hand, beckoning Jack to come up to his side. "Look there, son," he
said, pointing, and Jack saw, only about forty yards away, two bob-cats
pulling and tearing at some small thing on the ground, a little
distance out in the meadow. Hugh said, "You try to kill the one that is
nearest to the brush, and I'll see if I can take the other one on the
jump." Jack leveled his rifle and took a careful side aim at the breast
of one of the cats, which stood facing him. On the crack of the gun the
one he had fired at fell over, while the other jumped high in the air,
and when it struck the ground again stood looking to see whence the
noise had come. It looked only for an instant, for then Hugh's gun also
spoke, and the animal fell over.
"Well," said Hugh, as he reloaded his gun, "I wouldn't have looked for
those two bob-cats in such a place as this. I reckon their hides are
not worth much, but they might make you a pair of shaps, son; let's go
over and get them and see what it is that they were eating."
Walking over to the place, they found that the bob-cats had been
devouring the carcass of a little spotted fawn.
"Look there, now," said Hugh; "that's the sort of work these fellows
are at day in and day out all the year round. Of course, after a while
the fawns get too big and shy for them to tackle, but these bob-cats
are all the time killing something that ought to be allowed to live.
I suppose that every two or three days for the next month or two each
of these cats will kill a young deer, or a young antelope, or maybe
a young elk. That would make twenty head of young game animals to a
cat each summer. It's mighty lucky that there ain't any more of those
fellows in the mountains than there is." He stooped over and looked at
the head of the lynx he had shot, and then at the one that had fallen
to Jack's gun. The latter was shot through the neck and showed a small
hole where the bullet went in and a large one where it came out. The
lynx he had killed had only one bullet hole in its neck, the ball
having entered its mouth and having knocked out some of its front teeth.
"You ought to shoot closer, son," he said to Jack. "Every hole cut in a
skin takes a little off its value. You might remember this."
[Illustration: TWO BOB-CATS PULLING AND TEARING AT SOME SMALL THING ON
THE GROUND.--_Page 106._]
"Yes, Hugh, I know I ought to have shot it through the head, but the
range was short and I was a little afraid that if I fired at its head I
might overshoot."
"Well," said Hugh, "of course, you might have done so, and at the same
time you ought to know how to hold your gun so that you would know just
where the bullet would hit at every range from twenty yards up to two
hundred."
"Well," said Jack, "I have been pretty lucky with my shooting, but you
know that I can't shoot like you, Hugh; and I don't believe I ever will
be able to."
"Nonsense," said Hugh. "When you once know your gun thoroughly,
provided it's a good one, you can shoot just where you want to, and
just as well as any man alive."
"Well," said Jack, "I'll try to be more careful after this. Lord knows,
I want to be a good shot, but you can never make me believe that I'll
ever learn to shoot as well as you do, Hugh."
"Yes, you will," said Hugh. "Now, let's see what we can do with these
bob-cats, son, and then go on a little further and find out something
about how these beaver down here are living."
Hugh took from his pocket a buckskin string and tied the two cats
together. Jack climbed up among some stout willow stems and by his
weight bent them down to within five or six feet of the ground, and
then Hugh hung the cats across them. When Jack came down the stems rose
nearly to their former height and left the lynxes suspended well out of
reach of any prowling animal. Then the two went on.
As they walked on over the meadow where the thick grass stood
knee-high, the ground became more and more moist, until presently the
water quite covered the soil.
"We must look out here, son," said Hugh; "we may strike bad places
anywhere and must go carefully."
Presently they were stopped by a ditch two or three feet wide, in which
a few inches of water seemed to stand. Hugh stepped across it, finding
the bank on the other side firm enough, and Jack jumped after him.
"This," said Hugh, "is one of those ditches that I was telling you
about that the beaver dig to float their feed down to their ponds. If
we could follow it back to the brush we would find that the willows all
along it had been cut off."
A little beyond this they came to a place where the water was deeper
and where the mud under the water was soft, and here they stopped and
turning up the stream, followed as nearly as they could the edge of
the old pond. Standing in the grass, out where the water was deeper,
Hugh pointed out a number of little mounds overgrown with grass and low
willows, which he told Jack were old and long-deserted beaver houses.
"If we could get out to them," he said, "we should find under that
brush a solid foundation of sticks and mud. Those houses will last for
a long time, for as the sticks are kept wet all the time they don't
rot, but just become water-soaked and will last pretty nearly forever."
The grass, the mud and water, and the frequent detours they had to
make made their progress up stream slow, but at length they came to a
grass-grown wall a foot or two higher than the rest of the ground, and
when he saw that, Hugh gave an exclamation of satisfaction.
"Now," he said, "I think we'll have better going. This, you see, is an
old dam, and the chances are we can get on it and cross the stream, and
on the other side, where the bottom is narrower, we shall have better
going." It turned out just as he had said. The dam, though soft in
places, was generally so firm that they could walk along on it pretty
comfortably. Over toward its further end it was partly broken down
and the water of the stream trickled over and through it for a width
of about twenty feet, but by carefully feeling their way and at every
step testing the dam with their feet, they managed to cross the running
water, and from there to the other side of the valley the dam was firm.
On this west side of the stream the moist bottom was much narrower and
they presently found themselves on firm ground, and started to walk
briskly up the creek.
"All this work here," said Hugh, "is very old, and I haven't seen any
sign of beaver being here for a long time. We'll go up stream as far as
we can, but we must cross to the other side before it gets night. We'd
be pretty badly off if we were caught in this beaver swamp after dark.
We'd sure have to spend the night here. I wouldn't be much surprised if
we found that we had to move camp and go up further toward the head of
the stream. The beaver have certainly left this part of it."
They hurried on, and for a mile or two nothing was said. The sun was
hot and the rubber boots which both wore seemed clumsy and heavy. Jack
felt pretty tired but he said nothing of this to Hugh. Presently, from
the dry upland where they were walking they could see ahead of them a
pond, and then, a little later, the dam which held back its waters.
"There," said Hugh, "that looks to me like fresh work. Don't you see
there in that dam some green leaves sticking up? That looks as if the
dam had been lately mended; so lately that the twigs and brush used in
repairing it have not yet died and lost their leaves."
Jack could see this, and then as he looked over the pond he saw a
long wake in the water close to the bank, and caught Hugh's arm and
said, "Look there. Hugh, away over there under the bank. What is that
swimming? Of course, it may be a duck, but may it not be a beaver?"
Hugh looked carefully, and presently the object which was swimming
passed a little bay so that it was distinctly seen as a small, round
object. "That's a beaver, son," said Hugh. "You can see for yourself
that it isn't a duck, and the only other thing it could be would be an
otter or muskrat. It is too big for a muskrat and it doesn't seem like
an otter. There are beaver down there, and what's more, they haven't
been disturbed for a long time, or else they wouldn't be out swimming
around like that in the heat of the day. Let's go down and take a look
around; but keep quiet; don't make any quick motions, and whatever you
see, don't fire your gun. If there are any beaver there we want to get
some of them."
The two walked slowly down toward the dam, taking advantage of whatever
little cover there was in the way of inequalities of the ground or of
willow brush. Down close to the water's edge grew a good many willows,
and they were thus able to get quite close to the dam, and sitting down
there they watched the water. For a long time, as it seemed to Jack,
it was absolutely still, and then, while he was staring as hard as he
could at the farther bank and the place where the dam met it, Hugh
touched him and made a little motion with his head, and Jack, following
the direction of his companion's eyes, saw, not more than twenty-five
yards off, two beaver swimming down toward the dam, each with his head
slightly turned to one side, and each dragging after him a green stick
about three or four feet long. The two animals came on down to the
dam, and without the slightest suspicion that they were being watched,
crawled out of the water, dragging their sticks after them. When they
left the water they were so close to the watchers that they were
hidden from them by the dam, and just what they were doing could not be
seen. Jack touched Hugh, and when he bent down his head, whispered to
him, "Couldn't we crawl up a little closer and watch them?" Hugh shook
his head. A few moments later the two beaver entered the water again
and swam off up the pond. When they had disappeared Hugh touched Jack,
and turning about, they crept away among the willows in the direction
from which they had just come.
When they had left the dam some way behind them, Hugh stopped and said
to Jack, "Now, let us go on up this pond, and try to see where these
beaver are living and where they're working. Keep out of sight as much
as you can. I don't want them to know that there are any people about.
It looks to me as if nobody had been trapping here for years, and as
if we had struck something good. Now, come on, I want to walk fast and
find out all I can to-night, and then we've got to get back to the camp
as quickly as we can." They hurried along up the stream, Hugh looking
carefully at the willows and aspens along the border of the meadow, and
sometimes going down toward the edge of the pond. They crossed a number
of places where branches, some of them quite large, had been dragged
over the ground, but Hugh contented himself with saying to Jack, "You
see, these beaver are working all along here, and they have to go quite
a little way for their food."
The beaver pond was quite a long one, but at last they reached its
head. Here they came upon a game trail which seemed to lead back across
the stream, and turned into it in the hope that it might lead them to
the other side. From one high point above the pond they got a good view
of its whole length, and Hugh pointed out half a dozen grayish brown
objects raised two or three feet above the water's surface, which he
told Jack were beaver houses. "It may be, son," he said, "that we'll
have to bring our outfit across and camp up at the head of this pond.
It's too far from our present camp for us to trap here conveniently."
The game trail led them across the wide stream valley by a good, hard
road. At only one point was it deep and muddy, and just here by good
luck they found an old cottonwood tree, felled long ago by the beavers,
which bridged the bad place.
Once on the other side of the valley, they turned sharply down stream,
and after a long walk, reached the game trail by which they had crossed
it earlier in the day. They went down this until they came to the place
where the lynxes had been hung up, and getting these, they went back to
camp, reaching it just about sundown.
"Well," said Hugh, "I feel as if we'd had quite a walk. I guess you are
ready for supper, aren't you, son?"
"You bet I am," said Jack; "but the first thing I want to do is to shed
these rubber boots. They seem to me the heaviest things I ever had on
my feet, and I believe I've got three or four blisters from walking in
them. I'd rather go barefoot than wear these again."
"Don't you believe it, son," said Hugh. "You'll be mighty glad of them
boots before many days, now. I expect before long to have you wallowing
around in the mud and water like a terrapin."