SETTING FOR BEAVER
"Well, son," said Hugh, as he was cooking breakfast next morning,
"we've got a full day's work cut out for us, and we'd better make
it as light as possible. You may as well go and catch up the saddle
horses and bring them in. We have a load of traps to carry, but we can
put them on our saddles. Down in this country, and at this time, we
can set our traps without danger, and yet, just as a matter of habit,
we'd better take our guns along. Those and the ax and our traps and my
bottle of 'medicine' will be all that we'll need."
"All right," said Jack; "I'll go now, and bring the horses in and
saddle up"; which he did.
By the time the horses were saddled, breakfast was ready, and soon
after they had finished, the sack of traps was emptied on the ground,
and Hugh tied four behind his saddle, and Jack four behind his.
"My, but these traps are heavy," observed Jack; "and strong, too. I
should think that they would hold any animal except, perhaps, a bear."
"Yes," said Hugh, "they're strong enough, and they've got to be to hold
a beaver, for he pulls pretty hard when he gets his foot in a trap.
However, if they are properly set he doesn't have a chance to struggle
long, for he plunges right for deep water and the trap holds him down,
so that he drowns."
Just as they were about to start, Hugh disappeared into the tent, and
rummaging around among the packages there, presently emerged with a
good-sized stick of wood in his hand, to one end of which was tied a
long buckskin thong forming a loop, which he hung over his head so that
the stick rested on his breast.
Jack looked at it in some astonishment, and then saw that the stick was
apparently a big wooden bottle formed of a birch stick three inches or
more in diameter, in which a hole had been bored. This hole was stopped
by a wooden plug driven into the hole, thus corking the bottle tightly.
Evidently the stick had been used a long time, for it was worn and
polished by much handling.
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "I suppose that is your beaver medicine, but I
never had any idea that you carried it in a bottle like that."
"Yes, son, that's the bottle, and I have used it for a good many years.
You know that in old times when I first came out into this country
glass bottles and tin cans weren't very plenty here, and glass doesn't
last long anyhow. This is the sort of a bottle that everybody used in
early days, and I've had this for a long time and had considerable luck
with it."
"I never dared ask you what the medicine was made of, Hugh," said Jack,
"but I suppose when you get to using it you'll let me have a smell of
it, won't you?"
"Sure," said Hugh. "That's what it's made for, to be smelled of. But
before you know what beaver medicine is made of, you'll have to be a
real trapper."
The two swung themselves into the saddles and started off up the
stream. Jack carried the ax, the head of which was protected by a
leather case which covered its cutting edge, in his rifle scabbard
under his leg.
"Now, son," said Hugh, "judging from what you said yesterday about
the creek above here, I believe it's worth our while to ride quite a
way up and see whether it gets narrow. If it does, we can perhaps
set our traps first up there, because they will be easier to handle.
I don't want to set around these big ponds if I can help it. There is
too much danger of our losing some of our traps, and then if a beaver
gets out into deep water it's barely possible that we might lose the
float-stick, or else that it might get hidden, and even if we should
find it out in deep water there's no way to get at it except to swim
for it. You and I don't want to do that if we can help it. This water
is pretty cold, for it comes right down from the snow."
"That is one of the things I was wondering about, Hugh; how you were
going to find your traps or your beaver in case they got out into the
water in these ponds a long way from shore."
"I'll show you how we fix that sort of thing, son; but as I say, we
haven't traps enough to take very much risk."
As they went on up the stream Jack pointed out to Hugh where he had
killed the panther the day before, and showed him the pond where he had
seen the birds.
Not very far above this they came to a place where a few willows grew,
and where a beaver dam, holding back the water, had made a long,
narrow, and rather deep pond running through the meadow.
"There," said Hugh, pointing to it, "that looks like a good place to
set, but we'll go on further and see what we find."
Above this pond the stream for some distance rippled noisily over a
rocky bottom, but soon they came to another dam, above which was found
another long and narrow pond with two or three houses near its lower
end. At two places toward the upper end there were grassy points which
projected into the pond, and one of which ran nearly across it.
"That looks like a good place for us to set a couple of traps, son,"
said Hugh. "Now, I wish that you would go into that pine timber just at
the edge of the meadow and get me a couple of dead pines if you can
find them, six or eight feet long and three inches through at the butt.
Then sharpen the butt end so that I can drive it good and deep into the
mud, so that it will hold. When you get the sticks, come around by the
outer edge of the meadow and then ride in as near the edge of the pond
as you can, coming well below me. I am going over now to the edge of
the water to sort o' prospect."
Jack rode up into the timber and soon found a couple of young, dead
trees which he chopped down, and from which he cut the required
lengths. Then trimming the branches from the sticks, he sharpened the
butt of each, and hanging one of them on either side of the horse, rode
slowly back.
Hugh's black horse was grazing at the edge of the meadow, and Hugh
himself could be seen down close to the water's edge.
Jack left Pawnee by Hugh's horse, and taking the sticks on his shoulder
walked over to the water's edge, making a circle so as to come toward
Hugh from the down-stream side. Before he had reached the water, Hugh
signed to him to stop, and then came back toward him and said, "There's
a good place here for two traps, and I'll set them, and you may as well
come with me and watch what I do." Jack noticed that Hugh had stuck in
his belt half a dozen straight willow twigs from a foot and a half to
three feet long and about as large around as a lead pencil.
"Now, the first thing you want to remember, son, is that you mustn't
leave any sign or any scent for the beaver to notice. They're smart
animals, and if they see anything unusual, or if they smell anything
strange, it puts them on their guard and you're not likely to have them
go to your traps. Of course, here it's a little different because these
beaver seem so tame, but you may as well try to begin right."
"Now I'm going to set two traps, one on each of these little points
that you see running out into the pond. We've got to start in here and
walk in the water up to where we're going to set, and I think that
right close under the bank here we'll find the bottom hard enough for
us to travel on. Just away from the bank it drops off sharply, and that
is the best kind of water to set in for beaver. Now I will go ahead
with these traps and you follow after me, carrying those sticks. You've
cut them just about right, and I'll show you pretty soon what they're
for. They are what we call float-sticks."
Hugh took two of the heavy traps in his hand and entering the water
began to wade up the stream. Jack noticed that he kept far enough from
the banks so that his clothing did not touch any of the overhanging
grass or weeds. The water was not so deep as Jack had supposed, and
did not come up within several inches of the tops of his rubber boots.
He stepped into the water after Hugh, and tried to imitate all his
motions, dragging after him the two float-sticks, but keeping also away
from the bank. Presently Hugh stopped at the lower of the two points
and waded out a step or two, but the water deepened so rapidly that
he at once drew back. He now turned to Jack, and reaching toward him
Jack passed Hugh one of the float-sticks. Hugh made a large loop of
the long chain which was attached to the trap and passing it over the
small end of the pole let it down to within a foot or two of the butt,
and then drew the loop close between the stubs of the branches which
Jack had cut off in trimming the little tree. Hugh took some pains with
this, working on the chain until it tightly encircled the stick and
could not be pulled up or down. Then taking the stick by its smaller
end, he felt with it for the bottom some six or eight feet out from
the bank, and when he had found a place that was satisfactory to him,
thrust the sharpened end of the stick into the mud at the bottom. By
repeated efforts he drove the stick so deep that the end which he held
in his hand was almost submerged. Meantime, the trap, which was fast
to the other end of the chain, lay on the bottom close to his foot. He
now took the trap, and rolling up his sleeves, stood with one foot on
either spring of the trap and by his weight bent these springs down so
that he could set the trap. Then holding it by the chain he lifted the
trap out of the water and brought it within ten or twelve inches of the
grassy margin of the pond. Then he said to Jack, who stood silently
near him, "We can't do much talking here, son, but after we get these
traps set I'll explain to you what I've been doing, and why. Take
notice, though, that I'm putting this trap in pretty shallow water, but
that there's deep water just outside."
Hugh worked a little while on the bottom until he had scraped out a
flat, firm bed in which the trap was placed, then from the up-stream
side of the trap he scraped up one or two handfuls of soft mud and
scattered it above the trap so that two or three minutes later, when
the water had cleared, Jack could barely see the outline of the jaws
showing in the mud which covered trap and chain. Then Hugh drew from
his belt one of the shorter of the willow twigs, submerged it, and
with his knife, also held under water, split the twig in half a dozen
places for an inch or two from the end. Then he returned his knife to
its sheath, and still holding the twig under water with his other hand,
drew the cork from the bottle of beaver medicine, lifted the twig from
the water and thrust the split end into the bottle and drew it out
dripping with a brownish fluid, the odor of which, as it came to Jack's
nostrils, seemed exactly that of a rotten apple. Then Hugh thrust the
other end of the willow twig into the bottom on the shoreward side of
the trap, so that the split end stood about ten inches above the trap.
"There," said Hugh, "that's done. Now let's go on, but be very careful
when you come to the trap to keep out from the shore as far as you can,
and to step well over the chair."
A little further on, when they came to the second point, this operation
was repeated almost in the same way, except that here Hugh took eight
willow twigs and thrust them into the bottom, running out toward the
deep water, four on the up-stream side of the trap and four on the
down-stream side, the twigs being so arranged as to form a wide V which
might guide the beaver toward the bait-stick which formed the apex of
the V. In arranging these guiding wings, Hugh was careful not to touch
any part of the twigs which projected above the water with his hand,
but when he thrust the twigs into the bottom he held his hand under
water, and the portion of the twig that he had touched was also under
water.
Hugh and Jack now retraced their steps, going down the stream until
they reached the point where they had entered it. Then Hugh motioned
Jack to go ashore, and after he had done so, Hugh splashed the bank
where Jack had stepped, plentifully with water, and passing on a few
yards further down the stream left it by a little bay, the shore of
which he plentifully wetted with water before he stepped out on the
grass. Then the two went over to their horses, mounted, and rode up the
stream.
Jack had watched closely what Hugh had done and understood why most of
the operations that he had gone through with had been performed, yet
there were many questions that he felt like asking.
"Now, son," said Hugh, after they had reached the upper end of the
meadow, "let us go into this little piece of pine timber of yours and
cut some more float-sticks; it is worth our while to carry some of
them along with us. I don't know whether in trimming those sticks you
intended to leave those branches sticking out as long as you did, but
whether you meant to do it or not, it was just the right thing."
"Yes, Hugh," said Jack, "I understood from what you had told me what
you wanted those sticks for, and of course I could see that you wanted
them fixed so that the chain in the trap would not slip either way."
"That's it, exactly," said Hugh; "and I'm glad you listened so
carefully and understood so well. Now, of course, if we couldn't find
sticks with the branches just right, as those two sticks had, we might
have to cut a notch in the float-stick, or we might have to try to bind
the chain to it in some way or another. But there's work enough about
beaver trapping at best, and if you can find the right kind of sticks,
always better use them."
In the pine timber there were plenty of dead young trees, from which
they selected four which made good float-sticks.
"I don't know, Hugh," said Jack, as they were hanging the sticks on
their saddles, "just why you take a dry stick."
"Well," said Hugh, "there are two or more reasons for that. In the
first place the beaver, if they happen to find the dry float-stick, are
less likely to try their teeth on it than they would be if the stick
were green. If you used a green cottonwood or willow or birch stick
for your float-stick, very likely the beaver might carry it and your
trap off into deep water before they got near the trap. Besides that,
if a trapped beaver dives for deep water and manages to pull up your
float-stick and it floats away, a dry one will float higher than a
green stick and will be more easily seen and recovered."
"Yes, I see," said Jack. "That's plain enough. I suppose that you kept
your hands under water so much in order to wash away the human scent."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that is so. There are lots of men who will never
hold the trap or the bait-stick or anything connected with the trap, so
that the wind will blow from them to it. They believe that the human
scent will stick to anything, and that the beaver can smell it. I don't
go quite as far as that, but I do know that if there were a hard breeze
blowing I'd always get to the leeward of the trap and of all the things
I left near the trapping ground."
"Well," said Jack, "I wondered as I saw you setting those traps to see
how awful careful you were about everything you did."
"Well," said Hugh, "I suppose that's habit, but it's necessary. You
take a man that is careless, and that leaves sign about everywhere, and
you'll find that he never catches any fur. I have been out with men of
that kind, and they were always poor trappers."
As the two started on Jack looked at the sun and asked, "Do you know
what time it is, Hugh?"
"About noon, I guess," said Hugh.
"I guess so, too," said Jack, "and just think, it's taken us a whole
morning to set two traps."
"Yes," replied Hugh; "it has taken a long time, and we'll be lucky if
we get two or three more set before it's time for us to turn back to
camp, but in two or three days you'll find that things will run along a
good deal smoother and we won't have to take quite so much time as we
have to-day."
They went on up the stream, keeping well back from it, but
occasionally, where there was an opening in the brush, riding out to
the bank. A mile or two further on another dam was found with a pond
smaller than the one below, and immediately above this the rise of the
valley was sharper so that the stream was swift and shallow.
After they had left the horses and were prospecting along the bank for
a place to set, Hugh pointed out to Jack a slide from the grassy bank
down into the water, which he said had been made, not by the beaver,
but by an otter. "Sometime," he said, "we may try to catch that fellow.
We're not rigged for it to-day, and I guess we'd better stick to
beaver." At a little point near the head of the pond on the east side
Hugh set another trap just as he had set the two previous ones, and
then going to the head of the pond they crossed over and set another on
the west side. Here the main current ran close under the bank, and Hugh
was obliged to build up a little bed of stones and gravel on which to
rest his trap.
"You see, son," he said, "you must have your trap so near to the top
of the water that when the beaver makes a kind of a dive with his foot
to raise his head up close to the medicine on the bait-stick, he will
strike the pan of the trap with a foot and so spring it. Sometimes, if
the water is a little deeper over the trap than a man thinks is just
right, and he hasn't any way of building up a firm bed for the trap to
rest on, he will take a stick and thrust it into the bank, pointing out
level into the water about two inches below the surface. The beaver,
swimming along toward the medicine, will hit this stick and it will
stop him, and then when he makes a strong effort with his foot to get
over it he will sink his foot so deep under water as to hit the pan of
the trap.
"There," he said, as he backed away from the last trap set. "Now let us
walk up the stream for a little way, and then go out of it and around
to the horses. I have always thought that if a man takes reasonable
care in setting his traps, there is more danger that the beaver will
notice where he's gone in and out of the stream than there is of their
suspecting something about the trap. Of course, you've got to be
careful always in setting, but I've always had an idea that when a
beaver gets the scent of the medicine in his nose he becomes so intent
on that that he doesn't notice other signs right about the trap."
They kept on up the stream for quite a little way, and then leaving
it, went around to their horses again. Hugh looked at the sun as they
mounted, and said, "We have lots of time to get back to camp, and I
think it might be worth while for us, on our way back, to go down to
the two traps we set below. We might easily have something in one of
them, seeing how tame these beaver are, and how they seem to be out all
day long."
On the way back, they stopped as suggested, but only went near enough
to the bank of the stream to see that neither trap had been disturbed,
and then returned to camp. Half an hour was spent in stretching the
lion's skin that Jack had killed the day before, and while they were at
work at this Hugh said, "There seem to be quite a lot of lions in this
country, son, and it's worth while to kill one every chance we get. We
might run across a camp of Utes down here, and the Utes, like all other
Indians that I know anything about, think a great deal of lion's skins.
The chances are that you could trade this skin for three or four good
beaver, and of course those would be worth a great deal more than a
lion's skin, which is good for nothing except to look at. The Indians,
you know, like lions' skins to make bow cases and quivers. I have often
thought that maybe they have the same idea about the lion's skin that
they do about the feathers of hawks or owls."
"How do you mean, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Why," said Hugh, "you know that the Indians think a great deal of all
the birds that catch their prey; that is, the eagles, hawks, and owls;
they value them and their feathers in war, and they think that wearing
those things helps them to be successful in war. I suppose the idea
is that as the hawk or the eagle is fierce and strong and successful
in attacking his enemies, so they, if they wear his feathers, will be
fierce and strong and successful. In other words, they think that the
qualities of the bird will be given to them if they have about them
something that belongs to the bird.
"Well, now, here's a mountain lion; he is cunning and cautious,
creeping about and scarcely ever being seen, able to catch his prey and
hold and kill it with his sharp claws and his strong teeth, and maybe
the Indians think that if they have about them something that belongs
to him they will also have some of his qualities."
"Jerusalem, Hugh," said Jack, "I like to hear you tell about what the
Indians believe, and why they believe it. I wonder if most men who have
seen much of Indians understand as well as you do how they think about
things. Of course, it's fun to hear you tell about their habits and
what they do, but it's better fun yet to hear you tell about how they
think about the different matters of their living."
"Well, son," said Hugh, "I've talked a heap with Indians about all
these matters, and I do like to hear how they feel about them. I guess
maybe there are lots of other people feel the way you and I do; but
most of the old-time hunters and mountain men didn't think about much
of anything except gathering a lot of fur and then going in and selling
it, and getting their money and spending it as quick as they could, and
then starting out to get more fur.
"I mind that once your uncle, when I was telling him some story about
Indians, said to me, 'The proper study of mankind is man,' and when I
told him I thought so, too, he said that that was something that some
poet said a couple of hundred years ago."
"Well, I guess it's so, Hugh," said Jack, "no matter who it was said
it."
When the panther skin had been stretched, Hugh told Jack to put around
it the same protection that they had stretched about the grizzly bear
skin, and soon after this had been done supper was ready. The dishes
were washed before the sun had set, and building up the fire, the two
companions lounged about it with the comfortable feeling which follows
a day of hard work. For setting traps, although it does not sound like
very hard work, had really required a good deal of effort.
"Now, son," remarked Hugh, "we want to get started to-morrow morning in
good season, and we ought to be on our way before it's plain daylight.
Of course, I hope that we'll find a beaver in every trap, but it may be
that we won't find anything but feet."
"How do you mean, Hugh? Is it so that the beaver will gnaw their feet
off to get out of a trap?"
"Not so," said Hugh. "I don't reckon a beaver knows enough for that
in the first place, or could do it in the second. A beaver's foot is
made up of a whole lot of pretty strong bones, and I question whether
even a beaver could cut through those bones, and then he wouldn't know
enough to do it. All a beaver knows when he gets caught is to struggle,
and pull, and twist, and turn, and try to get away. Very often, if
the traps are not properly set, they do get away, leaving their feet
in the trap, but they don't gnaw their feet off; they twist them off.
That is something that can be done and often is done, and that's the
reason, as maybe I've told you before, that we always try to set our
traps so that a beaver as soon as he gets caught, will plunge into deep
water, and will be held there by the trap until he drowns. Then he has
no opportunity of fighting with the trap and trying to get free. Of
course, it often happens that it isn't possible to set your traps so
that your beaver will drown, and where that isn't possible, you are
likely to lose a good many of the beaver that you catch. It used to be
a common thing to catch beaver with only three feet, sometimes with
only two, and I once caught one that had only one foot, a hind foot
that he got into the trap."
"I should think, Hugh, that a beaver that had been caught once and had
got away would be mighty hard to catch again."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's so, of course. He's always on the lookout
for a trap, and then, too, if a beaver has lost a foot, a quarter of
the chance of getting him is gone. If he's lost two feet he's only
got two feet that can get into the trap, instead of having four, like
an ordinary beaver. Lots of queer things happen in beaver trapping. I
reckon I never told you that story of old Jim Beckwourth's about the
beaver and the trap that was stolen by a buffalo."
"No," answered Jack. "That sounds as if it ought to be a queer story or
a pretty good lie."
"Well," replied Hugh, "Jim Beckwourth had the name of being the biggest
liar that ever traveled these prairies, but I wouldn't be surprised
if he told the truth that time, and, anyway, Jim Bridger was with him
when he found the trap with the beaver in it out on the high prairie a
couple miles from where it was set.
"It seems, according to the story--it happened long before my
time--that Jim came to a place where he'd set a trap and found that it
was gone. There was sign there that some buffalo had crossed the creek
just at this point. Jim hunted up and down the stream and couldn't
find hair nor hide of the trap. The next day he and Jim Bridger went
back again and looked some more, and not being able to find anything,
they started on to join their party that was moving, and followed the
buffalo trail that led from the place where the trap had been set. They
had gone a couple of miles out on the prairie when they saw something,
and going up to it found it to be a beaver, still in the trap, with
the chain and float-stick all attached. Jim always claimed that one of
the buffalo when crossing the creek got his head tangled in the chain
of the trap and carried beaver, trap, and float-stick away out to the
prairie before dropping it. It's a good story, but I'd hate to swear to
it or to anything else that Jim Beckwourth ever said."
"That is a good story, Hugh," said Jack. "Isn't it wonderful," he added
after a pause, "what strange things happen out here on the prairie, but
there are lots of them that people back East wouldn't believe at all."
"Well, of course," said Hugh, "we all of us measure things up by what
we ourselves have seen and done, and when we hear about things that are
outside of the range of our own experience, we think they're wonderful."
For an hour or two longer they sat about the fire chatting over various
matters, and then on Hugh's repeating the suggestion that to-morrow
morning they must be early afoot, they went to bed.