PROSPECTING FOR FUR
It was not yet light next morning when Jack was awakened by a dull
tapping, not often repeated, and as his senses grew clearer it seemed
to him that the sound was like that made by an animal stamping its
hoof on the ground. He crept silently out of his blankets, felt about
for his cartridge belt and gun, and when he had found both, crept to
the door. He had hardly got there when he heard again, more faintly, a
stamping of a hoof, and then a snort which he knew was made by a deer.
Meantime, Hugh had awakened, and, raised on his elbow, was watching
Jack. The light was still so faint that objects could hardly be
distinguished, but gradually, as the eastern sky began to flush and
the light crept up toward zenith, Jack made out a deer standing fifty
or sixty yards away, and looking at the tent, and then heard rather
than saw it stamp its foot. Two or three times he put his rifle to his
shoulder and glanced along the barrel, but he could not yet see his
fore sight. Two or three times the deer stepped forward a little way,
and then stopped and again stamped. Evidently the tent, shining white
in the dim light of the morning, puzzled her, and she was trying to
make out what it was. She had never seen anything like this before.
As the light grew, Jack could see that it was a small doe, probably a
yearling, and just the meat they needed. At length he put his gun to
his shoulder again and found that he could see the sights, though not
very clearly, and drawing a coarse sight and aiming low down at the
brisket of the animal, which stood facing him, he pulled the trigger.
The deer sprang in the air, and then turning, ran swiftly toward the
brush and disappeared.
"Get it?" asked Hugh, as Jack moved back on his bed and began to put on
his trousers and shoes.
"I don't know," said Jack, "the light was too dim for me to see much. I
ought to have killed her, but I could hardly see my sights. I wouldn't
be much surprised, though, if we were to find her. She seemed to me to
jump as if she had been hit."
In a very few moments Hugh and Jack were both dressed, and while Hugh
began to kindle the fire, Jack walked off in the direction where the
deer had last been seen. It was now full day, and before he had gone
far the brilliant disk of the sun began to show over the eastern
horizon.
The tracks were plainly seen where the deer had sprung into the air,
and then turning, had run swiftly toward the willows. It was easy to
follow the trail, but there was no blood, and this gave Jack rather a
feeling of chagrin, for he did not like to feel that he had missed. As
he went on the tracks were less deeply marked in the ground, rather
as if--Jack thought--the animal had recovered from its fright. He had
only just begun to think about this, when suddenly he almost fell over
the deer lying in front of him. It had run about a hundred yards. Jack
turned and looked back toward the tent and at that moment Hugh, who had
been putting wood on the fire, turned his head and looked toward his
companion. Jack waved his hat as a sign that he had found the animal,
and then began to prepare it to take to camp. It was a young doe and
quite fat, and Jack felt quite pleased that he had got so good a piece
of meat. It did not take long to prepare it for camp, and as the animal
was small, and the distance short, Jack took it by the ears and easily
dragged it over the smooth grass up to the camp.
"Well," said Hugh, as he stooped over and felt of the carcass, "that's
good. A nice little white-tailed yearling, and quite fat. From now on
we've got to kill bucks or yearlings or dry does, for the old ones that
are nursing their young won't be fit to eat."
"It's queer, Hugh," said Jack, "I didn't find a bit of blood on the
trail. I just followed the tracks, and I was watching them so closely
that I almost fell over the deer at last. The bullet entered the breast
low down and went through the whole length of the animal, and both
where the bullet went in and where it came out, the skin had slipped
to one side so as to cover the hole in the flesh. Of course she bled a
lot, but not a drop of it came out of her body."
"Yes, that happens so every now and then in those shots that go through
an animal lengthwise, and they're especially likely to happen if the
animal was standing when the shot was fired, and then makes a big
effort afterward."
Breakfast was nearly ready, and by the time Jack had washed his hands
Hugh had poured out the coffee and they both sat down.
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "what are we going to do to-day? Shall we
move, or shall we stop here one more night?"
"I think," said Hugh, "that the best thing we can do is to take the
saddle horses and go on up the creek a few miles on this side and
prospect. After we've done that, we can make up our minds what is best
to be done, but it's pretty certain that we will want to go over and
camp two or three nights by that pond that we saw yesterday."
"Yes," said Jack, "I should think that was something that we ought to
do, sure."
It took but a few minutes to skin the deer and hang the carcass up
in one of the cottonwood trees, where it would be safe from any wolf
or coyote that might come about the camp, and then catching up their
riding horses, they saddled them and started up the stream.
For several miles the bottom was wide and usually thickly fringed with
willows. Several times they dismounted, tied their horses, and went
in as far as they could toward the main stream, but twice they were
stopped by water, or mud, or by beaver sloughs that were too wide for
them to cross. Hugh said little, but shook his head from time to time
as he looked over the valley. It was evident that he was dissatisfied.
Jack forebore to ask questions, for he could see that Hugh was occupied
in observing, and was thinking hard. They had gone five or six miles
up the valley, and it was now about noon, when, on rounding a point of
willows, they could see before them quite a large pond.
Hugh drew up his horse and for ten or fifteen minutes sat there
watching, and then drawing back, he rode up behind the willows,
dismounted, and tied his horse. Jack did the same.
"This looks better, son," said Hugh. "We'll go in here afoot as far as
we can and watch this pond and see what we can see. I think there are
beaver here, and probably this is the place we want to camp by."
As quietly as possible they made their way toward the edge of the
water, passing on the way several trails where the beaver had been
dragging brush to the water. The signs showed that this had been done
no longer ago than last night, for on the ground were scattered fresh,
green willow and cottonwood leaves, and in two or three places the
bark had been knocked off willow stems by whatever had been dragged
along, and these wounds were absolutely fresh. Presently they came
to the edge of the willows, and still keeping themselves concealed,
crept up to a little knoll, where they sat down and peered through the
tangle of stems out over the pond. There before them was a long dam
which Jack, with his experience of the day before fresh in his mind,
could see had been recently worked on. Out in the water were a number
of the hay-stack-shaped houses of the beaver, and even while they were
looking, to Jack's astonishment and delight a beaver appeared on one of
them, carrying in his mouth a long, white, peeled stick which he placed
among others on the roof. Jack looked at Hugh, wondering if he had seen
the beaver, too, and Hugh gave a little motion of his head. At two or
three points on the dam animals were at work, beaver, of course, but
too far off to be certainly recognized. Jack wished with all his heart
that he had brought his glasses.
For nearly an hour they sat there, and then crept away as noiselessly
as they had come, apparently unobserved by the animals.
When they had returned to their horses, Jack felt that he might speak.
"Wasn't that a pretty sight, Hugh?" he said. "I don't think I ever saw
anything quite as fine as that. I believe it would be a great deal more
fun just to get up close to these beaver and watch the way they live,
than it will be to trap them and kill them."
"So it would, son," said Hugh, "if we were just coming out for fun; and
I reckon it's pretty nearly as good fun for me to watch them critters
as it is for you. At the same time I feel as if we needed some of that
fur that is swimming around there, and as if we were going to get it.
It'll be quite a lot of work, but it's work that will be fairly well
paid for."
"Yes, Hugh, of course you're right. I want to trap some beaver and get
some fur, and either take it home or sell it; but didn't we have a good
time when we were sitting out there watching those animals? I tell you,
when that beaver crept up on the house there and put that white stick
in it's place, my heart pretty nearly jumped out of my body. I never
expected to see anything like that."
[Illustration: A BEAVER APPEARED WITH A LONG STICK, WHICH HE PLACED
WITH OTHERS ON THE ROOF.--_Page 130._]
"Yes," agreed Hugh, "it was nice. I'll acknowledge that; and we're
likely to see lots more of it. Of course we want to see the pleasant
sights, and then besides that we want to get something to show for
our trip. I think we'll do both. Come on now, let's mount and go on
further. The day is only about half gone and I want to learn all I can."
From here on for quite a long way up the stream, beaver seemed
abundant. The valley had grown much narrower, and instead of being a
wide, grass-grown prairie with more or less morass about it, it was
a narrow valley filled with beaver ponds, most of which seemed to be
occupied.
They took a hasty survey of it and had no more opportunity to watch the
animals at their work and their play. Several times as they were riding
along the edge of the valley they startled white-tailed deer from the
willows, but all those they saw were old does.
"I reckon," said Hugh, "that the fawns are too little as yet to run
with their mothers. The old ones hide them and run away, and then just
as soon as the danger is past they circle back and come close to them
again. Curious thing, isn't it, son, that these little fawns don't give
out any scent?"
"Mighty curious if it's so, Hugh."
"That's what people say," declared Hugh, "and I reckon likely it's
true, because, if you think of it, you'll know that the wolves and
coyotes are hunting all the time for these little fawns, and it's
pretty sure that they don't find many of them. If they did, the deer
wouldn't be half as plenty as they are."
"Then I suppose the white tails hide their young ones just as the elk
and the antelope do," said Jack.
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's just what they do, or for a matter of fact
just the way a buffalo cow hides her calf, or a common cow hides hers.
You see all these animals seem to have that one instinct. When their
young ones are very small and too weak to run fast or far, they hide
them, and the plan works well, too, for I guess it carries most of them
through. That fawn that those two lynxes were eating the other day was
probably either one that they stumbled on by accident, or else perhaps
one that had died from some sickness. They do that sometimes."
The sun was only a couple of hours high when they turned their horses
and, riding out on the prairie, galloped swiftly back to camp. The
straight road and good pace made their return journey seem much shorter
than it had been in the morning.
Supper over, they lounged about the fire, on which Jack had piled so
much wood that it gave a bright and cheerful blaze. Hugh was evidently
thinking over what he had seen during the day and making up his mind
about to-morrow, and Jack, feeling lazy, stretched out on the ground
near the fire, and presently went to sleep.
A little later Hugh called to him and said, "Rise up, son, and let us
talk over what we are going to do. We'd better settle that before we go
to bed."
Jack rubbed his eyes and sat up sleepily, while Hugh got out his
tobacco and filled his pipe, and then sitting cross-legged before the
fire and puffing out huge wreaths of smoke, he said to Jack, "Now,
son, there are plenty of beaver here, and if we have any luck at all
we could load one horse just from this stream. I don't know, though,
whether it's going to pay us to spend weeks of time setting traps and
skinning beaver. I think it's worth while for us to do some trapping
and get some fur, but I doubt if it's worth our while to spend the
whole summer doing it. Suppose to-morrow we move up close to that big
pond that we found to-day and make camp there and then trap until we
get tired of it. When we've had as much as we want of this one place,
we can move on and go somewhere else. It isn't quite as if we were
trying to make money enough trapping to carry us over the winter. You
don't greatly need the money that the fur would bring, and as for me,
I've got my job, and it's no matter of life and death to get this fur.
We're out here mainly for pleasure and for you to learn something about
the country, and the ways of the things that live in it. We are free to
do about as we please. What do you think?"
"Why, Hugh," replied Jack, "that seems to me a good way to look at
it. Let's trap here as long as we want to, and then travel on and go
somewhere else. I want to get up into the high mountains, and I suppose
you do, too. We want to have a little hunting and to see as much of the
country as we can."
"All right, son," said Hugh, "we'll let it go at that. And to-morrow
morning in good season we'll move camp up the creek. I'll be glad to
get these horses onto fresh grass. Of course, they are not working to
amount to anything and don't greatly need the food, but I've sort of
formed the habit of wanting my horses always to have the best there is
going."
"All right," rejoined Jack; "the first thing when we get up to-morrow
I'll bring in the horses and saddle them, and it won't take so very
long to get started."
"No," Hugh assented, "that's one good thing about us, we travel pretty
light and can go fast and far if we have to."
There was a little pause while Hugh knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
got his tobacco and lighted the pipe again. Then Jack said to him,
"Hugh, there's one thing I want to ask you about; how does it come
that these beaver here are so tame and are out swimming around in the
water in the middle of the day? I have always heard that in old times
it was sometimes possible to see beaver out at their work in the early
morning and again in the evening, but that during the day they were
always in their holes. I thought that the beaver was a night animal,
and that of late years, since it had been trapped and hunted so much,
it never came out at all in the daytime."
"That is something, son, that I can't understand at all: why we've seen
these beaver the way we have. I don't think I ever saw beaver acting
just this way, though I've heard of old men, those that were out here
trapping in the early days, say that in those times beaver were about
all day long. They didn't talk as if the beaver were a night animal,
but as if it were going about through the day, just, for example, as
prairie dogs do, or whistlers, or others of these gnawing animals that
we commonly see. I've an idea that it's only since people began to hunt
the beaver that he has took to working nights and sleeping days, but of
course I don't know anything about this; that's just my notion. Anyhow,
from the way these beaver here are acting, I should say that it was
a long time since they had been trapped or disturbed in any way, and
that seems queer, for you see we are not very far from the railroad,
and there are always idle people lying around a place like Laramie,
people that believe they know how to trap, and who, if they knew of a
place like this, would think they could make their everlasting fortune
here. I wonder some of those fellows haven't found the place. Then, on
the other hand, we're not so very far from where the Utes range, and
it would seem to me only natural that some of their young men might
run across a place like this and try to get the fur. Of course, if
they had come they would have made a scatteration of these beaver by
tearing down the dams and getting as many of the animals as they could
out of the houses. But nothing has been disturbed; there's no sign of
white people or Indians, and, what is a great deal better evidence,
the beaver are absolutely tame. We'll get some of them before long, I
reckon."
"I hope so," said Jack, as he rose to his feet and threw another stick
or two on the fire. Then squatting down by it, he said: "Three or four
days ago, Hugh, I asked you how big beaver were, and you told me, and
ever since then I've been trying to think of something that my uncle
told me two or three years ago about an old time sort of beaver that
doesn't exist any more on the earth. I think it was what you were
telling me about the Indians' belief in medicine beavers that made me
think of it. Uncle George told me that out in Ohio there was found a
skeleton, or part of the skeleton, of a great big animal just like a
beaver, but about as big as a black bear. That would mean, I suppose,
weighing three or four hundred pounds, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "about that."
"Well," said Jack, "this beaver lived in those old times, a good way
back, but not nearly as far back as those older times when the coal was
made. It lived about the same time that they used to have mastodons in
this country."
"Hold on," said Hugh, "say that again. What is a mastodon?"
"Why," said Jack, "it's a great big animal, a good deal like an
elephant. You have seen elephants, haven't you?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "once when I was a small boy I saw one. He was a
powerful big animal."
"Well," said Jack, "a mastodon was like an elephant, only bigger, and
he was different in some ways, but I've forgotten how. I think it was
something about his teeth. The mastodon didn't live such a very great
while ago, because I remember Uncle George said that the bones of those
that they have found had not yet turned to stone. Of course all these
fossils that come from the older times have changed into regular stone.
They are just rocks with the shape of bones or shells or whatever it
may be."
"Yes," said Hugh, "I know about that, because I've seen a heap of them.
They're just rocks in the shape of the different things that they used
to be."
"Well," said Jack, "anyhow the main thing is that in that time when
there were mastodons in this country, there was also a big animal like
a beaver, that would weigh several hundred pounds."
"He must have had fine fur," said Hugh, "but I reckon it would have
been powerful hard work setting traps for that fellow. You'd have to
have bear traps to catch him, and it's no joke to set a bear trap. You
say all they know about him is that they found his bones?"
"That's all," said Jack. "Uncle George showed me a picture of a skull
once, and I remember that it was longer than a wolf's skull, and it had
two great big gnawing teeth reaching down from the front of the jaw."
"Powerful strange things there used to be on this earth a long time
ago," said Hugh, in a meditative tone.
"Yes, indeed," answered Jack, "and think how little we, any of us, know
about those things. Even the smartest men, those who have given up all
their time to studying these things, don't seem to know much about
those old times. I know it's awful easy to ask them questions that they
can't answer."
"I suppose a man of that kind doesn't want to say anything unless he's
dead sure it's so," said Hugh. "Likely enough he's made his reputation
by always being right, and he's afraid to make any guesses."
"Maybe that is it," said Jack, "but I remember one time going to New
Haven with my uncle, and we went into the Peabody Museum, and one of
the professors there, a Mr. Marsh, took us around and showed us the
greatest lot of bones you ever saw. He could tell us a great many
things about the skeletons and parts of skeletons that he showed us,
but I know my uncle asked him a great many questions about other
things, and he would just laugh and say he didn't know anything about
it, and nobody else did."
"Well," said Hugh, "it's each man to his trade. I suppose I can hunt
and trap and know something about animals, and these professors work
over their birds and their bugs and their bones. Some of the stories
they tell are pretty hard to believe, and yet I reckon they are all
true."
"Oh, I guess so," said Jack.
The next morning before daylight had fairly broken, Jack was afoot
and on his way out to the horses. They were brought in and tied up to
the willows, their saddles put on and ropes coiled, picket pins got
together, and all the various property of the camp, which so easily
becomes scattered about, was collected before breakfast was ready.
The bear skin, which had now been drying for three or four days, was
taken from the ground and brought into camp. Hugh, when he looked at
it, said that it was in first-class condition and had not been burned
by the sun.
"Save all these pins, son," he said, "wrap them up in a gunny sack;
they may be useful to us later on, and may save us half a day's
whittling."
"Now," he said, "you take hold of one side of this hide and I'll take
hold of the other, and we'll fold it up hair side in and make it small
enough to go on top of one of the packs. It won't frighten the horse so
much, now that it has lost its fresh smell."
They folded the hide as Hugh had said, and it made a small, flat
package of convenient size to go in the load.
After they had eaten their breakfast, Jack took down the tent and
folded it, rolled the beds, and got most of the packs ready. Hugh's
kitchen was the last thing to be prepared, and then after a general
tightening of the saddles, the loads were lashed on the horses' backs
and they set out up the creek. Jack's last duty, and one which he
performed at every camp, was to ride carefully about the fire, and
about where the tent had stood, and look all over the ground, to see
whether anything had been left behind.
It was nearly noon when they reached the new camp ground. A pretty
spot, raised well above the level of the stream bottom, with a big
fringe of willows to the west, which would give shelter from any storm
rushing down the mountains, and a little grove of cottonwoods which
made a pleasant shade and would furnish fuel. Along a ravine which
emptied into the bottom there grew a few box elder trees.
"Well, Hugh, this is a good camp," said Jack.
"First-class," replied Hugh, "all except the water. Suppose you go down
into the willows there and see if you can find a spring. There must be
water right close by here, but I haven't seen any."
In a few minutes Jack returned, reporting an excellent though small
spring right in the edge of the willows close to the camp.
"We ought to dig it out, son, and make it bigger, if we are going to
water the horses there," remarked Hugh.
"All right," said Jack, "I'll do that now."
After the tent had been put up, two of the horses picketed, and dinner
eaten, Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son, if you want to go off on a
prospecting tour this afternoon, you better go. I am going to be busy
all the afternoon looking over my traps and making my medicine."
"Your medicine, Hugh," asked Jack, "what is that?"
"My beaver medicine," Hugh answered; "that is the stuff we are going to
use to make the beaver come into the trap."
"Oh, yes," said Jack, "I know; I've heard about that. It's a great
secret how it's made, isn't it, Hugh? I used to ask the trappers up
among the Blackfeet, and they always made some joke about it and never
would tell me what it was."
"Well," answered Hugh, "you'll find all trappers are just like that,
but before we get home I guess you will see me make it, and then if you
use your eyes and nose, perhaps you'll learn how to make it yourself.
But this afternoon," he went on, "I am going to take out my traps
and go over them, see that they work well, and get them ready to set
to-morrow. If you want to go hunting or looking around, or studying
anything, you go ahead and do it, only I'd get back here an hour or two
by sun, so that we can have our supper by daylight."
"All right," said Jack. "I think I'll take my rifle and walk on up the
creek. We don't greatly need any meat, but I might see something that
was worth shooting at."
"Well," said Hugh, "if I were you I wouldn't shoot much down in the
valley. I'd like to keep everything about camp as quiet as possible for
the next two or three days."
"I'll remember it," said Jack, and rising he took up his rifle and
strode off up the stream.