THEY SKIN BEAVER
The crackling of the fire was the first thing to rouse Jack next
morning, and when he sat up in bed he saw that it was still dark, and
that Hugh was at work cooking breakfast.
"Time to be astir, son," said Hugh, who had heard Jack's movement, and
in a very short time Jack was dressed and down by the spring dousing
himself with the cold water. The air was sharp and Jack crowded close
to the fire, but soon a cup of coffee and some hot antelope meat warmed
him up. The horses were brought in and saddled, and carrying the four
traps on their saddles, and the ax, the two started up the stream. Dawn
was beginning to show in the east, and before they had reached the
first of the beaver traps the sun was up.
As they rode along after it got light, Hugh kept close to the edge of
the willows and seemed to be looking for something, which presently he
found. This was a willow sapling which forked just above the ground,
sending up two sprouts to a height of twelve or fifteen feet. He cut
the sapling off below the fork, cut off one of the main branches close
to the fork and then trimmed the other branch, having thus a limber
pole ten or twelve feet long with a stout hook on its heavier end. This
he carried with him. When they left the horses he gave it to Jack,
saying: "Pack this for me, son, while I carry the ax and a couple of
traps."
They approached the stream by the same route that they had followed
the day before, and when they had come in sight of the place where
the first trap had been, Hugh said, "Something has happened here"; and
pointed to the stream just below where the trap had been set, where
Jack saw one end of the float-stick projecting above the water.
"Well," said Hugh, "I reckon we've got to get back that trap of ours
and see what there is in it."
When they had come opposite the float stick, Hugh put the ax in the
water, and taking the long willow pole from Jack, reached out, caught
the float-stick and pulled it in within reach of his hand, and he gave
the willow back to Jack and began to drag the trap toward him. Almost
at once he said to Jack, "Well, son, we've got a beaver, I reckon"; and
a moment or two later, after hauling in the chain, he lifted the trap
out of the water, and Jack saw the head and shoulders of a good-sized
beaver.
"Now," said Hugh, "we'll go up and look at the other trap, and then set
over again. These are pretty good places, and we might catch several
beaver here."
As Jack passed the trap and the beaver, which here lay almost at the
surface of the water, he looked down at it with the greatest interest,
but there was no time to stop and examine it. Hugh was plowing along
through the water toward the other point, and Jack could see the end of
the float-stick of the trap there just sticking out of the water, and
looking much as it had looked the day before, after the trap had been
set. Hugh said nothing, but advanced to the point, and then motioned to
Jack to give him the willow pole, with which he felt in the water near
the base of the float-stick and after two or three efforts hauled in
the trap, in which there was a beaver.
"Pretty good luck so far, son," said Hugh. "Now I am going to set this
trap over again here, because that float-stick is firm and this is a
rattling good place. Suppose you take this beaver and drag it down to
the place where we leave the creek, and then maybe take the other
beaver down there, too. By the time you've done that, I'll have set the
two traps, and then we'll take the two beaver out."
Jack took the dead beaver by a fore-paw and walked back along the
shore. When he had reached the other trap, he tried to take the other
beaver from it, but the springs were too stiff, and so he left it and
went on down to the point where they were to go out of the water. As he
looked back, he saw Hugh coming down to the trap in which the beaver
was, and leaving the animal that he had been dragging at the edge of
the water, he went back to Hugh, who by this time had freed the other
beaver and was at work resetting the trap. Jack dragged this beaver
down to the first one, and in a few moments Hugh had overtaken him, and
they started across the meadow, dragging the beaver over the grass.
When they reached the horses one of the animals was put on behind each
saddle and they started up the creek to visit the other traps. Here
their luck had been equally good, and two beaver were taken from these
two traps and the traps reset.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "if this sort of thing keeps up we'll have to
bring a pack horse along with us to carry the beaver into camp. Now let
us take all four of these animals up into that pine timber over there
and skin them and save ourselves the trouble of carrying them to camp.
If we need any of the meat we can take that down, of course."
"It looks to me, Hugh," said Jack, "as if the skinning of these four
beaver was going to be quite a job." "Well," said Hugh, "so it will. I
didn't suppose that we'd get more than two to-day, and figured that we
would take them down to camp, but after this I think it would be a good
idea for us to carry our skinning knives and whetstones with us."
"Our skinning knives, Hugh?" questioned Jack. "Why, we've both got our
skinning knives in our belts now."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's so, but those are not the best kind of knives
to skin beaver with. They're all right when you are skinning game where
you make wide sweeps, and do a lot of stripping; but where you've got
to naturally whittle a hide off, as you have to do with a beaver, and
at the same time have to be mighty careful not to make any cuts, a
smaller, shorter knife is better. It is easier to handle, and you can
work more quickly with it. I'll show you the knives we'll use when we
get back to camp to-night. Now, if you've got such a thing in your
pocket as a jack-knife, and I'm pretty sure you have, you better get
that out, and we will look for a couple of whetstones as we go along."
They loaded the two additional beaver on their horses, and walked,
leading them.
After they got out away from the bottom, Hugh stopped three or four
times and picked up several stones, most of which he threw away, but at
last he seemed to find two that suited him.
They had gone some distance from the place where the last beaver were
captured, when, at the edge of a little piece of pine timber, Hugh
stopped and said, "Here is a good place, son, to tackle this job; throw
down those beaver that are on your horse and drop your rope, and we'll
let the horses feed while we work."
The beaver were drawn off to one side, and then Hugh gave Jack one of
the stones that he had picked up and explained to him how to whet the
blade of his jack-knife so as to get a keen edge on it. Then the toil
of beaver skinning began. It seemed to Jack pretty slow, and he had no
more than half finished his first beaver when Hugh threw the hide from
his to one side and pushed the carcass away.
Jack, however, finished his beaver before Hugh had finished the second
one, and the two worked together on Jack's second beaver, and when they
started back they had a couple hours' daylight yet before them.
"Now," said Hugh, "we'll stop and get some willows on our way back to
camp and stretch these hides to-night. Then we'll be able to start in
fresh in the morning. If you ever let this work pile up on you, your
troubles begin sure. I'd rather skin all night than leave one beaver
over till next morning."
After they got into camp that night, Hugh gave Jack a lesson in making
the hoops on which to stretch the pelts; and the fur that they had
taken during the day was hung up in one of the trees to dry. Jack
looked at the stretched beaver skins, and thought that they seemed like
great furry shields, only that they were about four times as big as any
shield that he had ever seen.
Jack was tired that night as he sprawled on the ground by the fire, and
it did seem to him as if everything in camp smelled of beaver. He said
to Hugh: "I wish there was some way of getting rid of this smell of the
beaver and the beaver grease."
"Oh," laughed Hugh, "you haven't got used to it yet. If you don't like
the smell of beaver grease you'll never be a real trapper. That's what
the trapper lives in, and after a while he gets so he likes it. If you
are going to handle beaver and skin beaver, you can't help but smell of
them."
"Well," said Jack sleepily, "I think it's a pretty high price to pay
for the fur."
"Well," replied Hugh, "try it a few days, and if you don't like it
better, why, we can quit trapping and turn to something else. I noticed
to-day along the creek, son," he went on, "a lot of mink tracks. Now,
of course, mink isn't worth much of anything. Not much more than
muskrat, but it's fur all the same, and if you feel like it we can make
a few dead-falls and get some mink. They ought to be pretty good here,
close to the mountains."
"You catch them with dead-falls, do you, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Yes, the mink is a pretty simple-minded animal, and he'll go into
'most any kind of a trap. We ought to have some fish or bird for bait,
though. I suppose maybe we could get some suckers out of this creek,
but I guess the easiest way would be to kill one of those birds that
you showed me the other day."
"Oh, no, Hugh," said Jack, waking up, "don't let's do that; they're all
breeding now, and it would be a pity to break up a family. Wouldn't
mink go into a trap baited with beaver meat?"
"Maybe," answered Hugh; "I never heard of anybody using that for bait.
We'll get something, though, and catch a few if you like, but if the
beaver are going to act as they did to-day, why, they'll keep us busy
for a little while. To-morrow, if we get time, I want to go round on
the other side of that pond and set a couple of traps there, and then
come down below and set two traps there. We've got eight traps, and
they might as well all be in use."
"Well," said Jack, "I can imagine beaver getting too thick. I am surely
going to buck if this trip comes down to just plain beaver trapping."
"Well, don't make up your mind in too much of a hurry, son," said Hugh.
"You'll be able to use your hands a little better after two or three
days' practice, and I am sure you'd like to take a nice pack of beaver
back East to show to your friends."
They went to bed early that night, but again next morning Hugh had
Jack up before dawn. He was rested now, and felt more interested in
the work of trapping than he had the night before. The two got away
from camp before sun-up, and on visiting their traps again found that
each one contained a beaver. Hugh showed Jack how to set a trap, and
Jack readily learned that it was knack rather than strength that was
required to compress these powerful springs. The work went on a little
faster than it had the day before.
They took the beaver over to the same place and skinned them there.
Before they reached it, however, Hugh said to Jack, "Look out, son,
something has been here interfering with our pile," and sure enough
when they got to the place they saw that two of the beaver had been
dragged off down the ravine. Following the trail a little way, it
appeared that three bears had found the carcasses and had made away
with two of them. The tracks showed a good-sized grizzly and two quite
small cubs.
"Well," said Hugh, "I don't care very much to be feeding these bears,
but it's less trouble for us to skin here than to carry the beaver to
camp. Now these bears are our meat, son, if we want them. We can build
a trap and catch the old one, or we can come here and sit around and
watch for them, and kill them with our guns. I am inclined to think
that would be the better way, because it's a whole lot of trouble to
build a bear trap, and we haven't got the tools, and we haven't got the
timber right here. At least," he said, looking around, "no such timber
as I would like."
"Well," he went on, "let's skin our beaver and then to-morrow we'll see
what has happened."
To-day Jack found that skinning a beaver was much easier than it had
been yesterday. He learned how to grip and turn over the hide, and how
to make his knife strokes longer and more effective. This day Hugh
had not forgotten to bring the little skinning knives of which he had
previously spoken. It was not yet noon when the work of skinning was
ended and they had wiped the grease off their knives and hands and tied
the bundle of fur behind one of the saddles.
"It goes better to-day, son, doesn't it?" said Hugh.
"Why, yes," replied Jack; "that wasn't such very hard work. I could
skin another beaver and not mind it greatly."
"Well," said Hugh, "instead of doing that let us go out here and cross
the creek and go down on the the other side and set these other traps.
Do you want to take any of this meat along? There's one young beaver
there that might be good and tender, but as far as I'm concerned, I'd
just as soon have antelope meat."
"So would I, Hugh," said Jack. "But now look here, I'm thinking about
those bears. Can we not fix this meat here in some fashion so that they
can't carry it away, or if not that, can't we fix it so that it will
give some trouble, and they'll make more sign than they did yesterday?"
"Why, yes," said Hugh, "we can stake it down and maybe that will make
them stop and eat it here. We can hang it up in a tree, and that will
make them stay around here and get them used to the place."
Jack smiled at Hugh's joke, and then proposed that they should hang one
of the beaver up in a tree out of reach of the bears.
Hugh agreed, and Jack climbed up into the pine tree, where Hugh threw
him a rope by which he hauled up the carcass of a beaver, which he hung
over a limb in such fashion that it could not be shaken out by the wind.
"There," said Hugh, "I reckon before we get through we'll have those
bears regularly wonted to this place, but I'd rather not shoot at them,
or fire any guns until we have finished our trapping."
"Well," said Jack, "we can be pretty sure that the bears won't go away
as long as we leave something for them to eat here every day."
"No," said Hugh, "they won't leave the place as long as there's food."
"Do you know, son," he went on, "what the best thing in the world is
to drag, if you want to make a trail around a trap to bring a bear to
it?"
"No," said Jack, "what is it?"
"Why, it's a beaver. I don't know whether it is that bears are
especially fond of beaver, or whether its just the strong smell, but if
you take a beaver carcass and drag that, every bear that crosses the
trail will follow it up. We'll have to try that in case we set a bear
trap anywhere."
"Why, Hugh," replied Jack, "that's just what a wolfer told me on the
boat that year we went to Benton; or at least he told me a beaver made
the best kind of a drag for wolves."
"Well," said Hugh, "he told you true."
Mounting, they rode to the stream, and crossing, followed it down on
the west bank.
Hugh set two more traps in the pond where they had taken the last
beaver, and on the west side of the pond below he set two, and in
another pond still lower down, two more, near its head. Now all the
eight traps were set.
As they rode back to camp, Hugh said to Jack, "I'm beginning to feel
sorry for you already, son, for you're liable to have a day of pretty
hard work to-morrow. If we should get eight beaver, I reckon you'd
think you had your hands full. Besides that, I'm beginning to feel a
little touch of rheumatism in my right arm, and I don't know whether
I'll be able to use a knife to-morrow or not. This wading around in the
water, even in rubber boots, isn't good for a man as old as I am."
Jack looked hard at Hugh to see whether he was joking or not, and did
not answer, but looked away, and then quickly looking back again caught
the twinkle in Hugh's eye, which told him that his friend was just
making fun of him.
"Tired to-night, son?" said Hugh, after supper had been eaten and they
were comfortably sitting by the fire.
"No, Hugh," replied Jack, "not as tired as I was last night."
"Well, son, you've heard lots about the old trappers and the life they
led, and how full it was of danger and excitement, and maybe romance,
but this thing that we're doing now is just about the old life, except
that we don't have to keep our guns in our hands all the time, and our
eyes peeled for Blackfeet. The old trapper got up in the morning, went
to his traps, set them, brought in his fur and skinned and stretched
it, and then went to bed and slept. Of course, every little while he
killed a deer or a buffalo to eat, but most of his life was hard work,
and all he got for it was money enough to buy powder and lead and traps
for his next season's work, and a few days or a week or two of what he
called a good time at the post. They say cow punching is hard work, but
I don't believe any man ever worked harder than the trapper of the old
days, and he was always in danger of being rubbed out. I tell you that
these ranchmen and cowhands nowadays that are always bellyaching about
how hard they have to work, have a mighty easy time, and don't you
forget it."
"I guess that's so, Hugh. I guess a good deal of those wonderful good
times that we think other people have, exists only in our imagination."
"You bet they do," said Hugh. "Now, fur is good, it brings money and we
all like to have it, but I tell you it's like every other thing in this
world, it's got to be paid for. If you go into a store back East and
want to buy beaver skin, you've got to pay so much money for it. If you
want a beaver skin here you've got to start out, find where there are
beaver, splash around in the water setting your traps, skin and stretch
your beaver hide, and then carry it back in to the railroad. The price
you pay for a beaver skin back East isn't very much, considering all
the work that's been done before that beaver skin came into the store
of the man that sells it to you."
"I never thought of it just in that way before, Hugh," said Jack.
"I know I've heard people in the East grumble because furs were so
expensive, but, of course, those people didn't know any more than I
knew what it cost to get them."
"No," said Hugh, "I reckon they didn't, but if you think about it
you'll see that I'm right. Every good thing has got to be paid for by
somebody.
"Well, now, we'd better go to bed," Hugh went on, "and to-morrow when
we go to our traps, I think we'll take a couple of pack horses. We may
have good luck, and if we should get five or six beaver, they will be
more than we'll want to pack on our riding horses. In fact, I don't
know but that we might as well separate, and one go up on each side of
the creek, looking at the traps; do you suppose you could set some of
these traps yourself?"
"I don't know," said Jack, "I think I understand the theory of it all
right, but whether I can really do it is a question; and besides that,
we've only one bottle of beaver medicine."
"That's so," said Hugh. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll make an
early start and look at the traps together, and I'll have you set them
all, and then we'll go and skin whatever beaver we have taken."
"I guess that will be better," said Jack.
The next morning they picketed one of the pack horses and took the
other two with them. The horse left in camp was uneasy, and long after
they got out of sight they could hear him neighing for his companions,
but it grew light before long, and just before they turned into the
stream bottom, Jack rode up on a little knoll from which the camp could
be seen, and on his return reported to Hugh that the horse was feeding
contentedly enough.
They crossed the stream to the west bank, and to Hugh's great
satisfaction found that each one of the traps on that side held a
beaver. These they loaded on one of the pack horses, and then crossing
the stream at the head of the upper pond, they found two more beaver.
As they passed the various traps, Hugh had Jack set them, explaining
again the importance of keeping the human scent away from the traps
and from the bait-sticks, and showing him that washing in water was
the best way to get rid of that scent. "If you have to handle anything
above water," said Hugh, "do it with gloves on and see that these
gloves are often smoked on the outside. That will kill the scent."
After they had crossed the stream, Hugh said, "Now, suppose I go up to
our skinning ground and go to work on these beaver, and you take this
other pack horse and go on down and lift the other traps. You ought to
be able to set them, and if you happen to find anything in them you can
get it out to where the pack horse is and put it on him and bring it up
here. You see we have six beaver now, and it's going to take quite a
little while to skin them, and I'd better be busy at that than wasting
an hour to go down to these other traps."
"Yes," said Jack, "I think I can manage all right. Anyhow, I'll try. I
think I've got clearly in my head just how the traps ought to be set."
"Yes," said Hugh, "I reckon you have. If I were going down with you, I
would move those traps a little bit, but perhaps you had better not try
that; but do as you like about it. Anyhow, get back as soon as you can."
The morning had only half passed when they parted, and half an hour
later Jack had taken two beaver from the other traps and was struggling
with the problem of setting them. It was not very easy to do this
alone--not nearly so easy as it had been when Hugh was by to make
a suggestion to him if he began to do something in the wrong way.
However, he set both traps, but had some difficulty in thrusting
the float-stick of the lower one into the bottom. He remembered in
dipping the bait-stick into the medicine to hold the stick close to
its sharpened end, and not to touch any portion of it that was to
stand above water with his hand or his clothing. After the traps had
been set, he dragged the two beaver over the meadow to where the horse
stood, and fastened a sling rope about the neck of one of the beaver,
and the other end of the rope about the root of its tail, and then
pulling steadily and evenly on the ropes from the other side of the
pack horse, he raised first one and then the other beaver up on the
saddle and lashed them firmly there. Then with the animal's hackamore
in his hand, he mounted and rode to join Hugh.
Hugh was found sitting cross-legged on the pine needles, and hard at
work. Already he had stripped the skin from one beaver, and another was
almost finished.
"Hello," said Hugh, "we're surely in great luck to-day. If this was in
old times, I'd say we would have to look out for Indians to-night. So
much good luck is likely to be followed by some that is bad.
"Say," he went on, "we haven't time to look around much now, but
after we get through skinning these beaver I want you to see what the
bears did here last night. They regularly cleaned up all the meat we
left here, and one of them has been up that tree trying to get at the
carcass that you hung up there."
Jack dropped his load off the pack horse and pulled the beaver over
near to Hugh, and while he did so he was looking at the tree and could
see the scratches on the bark where some animal had climbed up.
"But, Hugh," he said, "they are grizzly bears, and I thought that
grizzlies never climbed trees."
"Well," said Hugh, "the big ones don't. I reckon it's because they're
too heavy and their front claws are too long, but the little fellows
can scramble up a tree pretty well, and often do. Many a time I've come
on an old bear with cubs and seen the young ones race up a tree while
the mother footed it off through the timber."
"Then you think it was a cub that climbed up this tree?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "a cub, and a little one, too. If you look at the
claw marks on the tree, you'll think the same thing."
"Well," said Jack, "we'll have to take these bears in, I guess."
"Yes," said Hugh, "we'll do that, and we can try it 'most any time. You
see that little knoll over there on the prairie? By coming down that
ravine beyond it, and creeping up to the edge of the knoll, we can get
a shot at them any time, if they are here."
"So we can," said Jack. In fact, whether by accident or by Hugh's
choosing, the position was a strategic one. A ravine led from the upper
prairie to the stream bottom, and just above it was a high, rounded
knoll, only a short rifle shot from where they were sitting.
"Have you any idea, Hugh, about what time the bears come here?"
"No," Hugh responded, "I haven't; but judging from the way all game
here acts, they ought to be right tame, and to be about any time of the
day, except about midday when the sun is hot."
"Well," asked Jack, "what's the matter with trying them to-morrow
morning before we got to the traps?"
"No harm in it at all," said Hugh; "but if we should get one or two
bears and four or five beaver, it would give us a whole day's hard
work, but then if we get too tired we can rest the next day."
"Well," Jack suggested, "we might try the bears to-morrow, and then go
to the traps, and let whatever luck we have determine what we'll do
next day."
"All right," said Hugh; "say we do."
After a pause, he went on, "As we were saying the other night, son, we
don't want to make a labor of this trip. We've got sixteen beaver now
in three days; they ought to be worth fifty dollars, and I don't know
but that we've stayed here about long enough. If we should make another
good catch to-morrow, we might pack up as soon as our fur is dry enough
and go along further. Of course, I reckon that by staying here and
working hard, we should get three or four hundred dollars' worth of fur
out of this stream. You can see we haven't half gone over it yet; we
haven't touched that big pond down below where there must be plenty of
beaver. But as I said before, we are not out here to make a grub stake
for winter."
"I think with you," said Jack, "that perhaps it would be just as well
to move camp to some other place."
"Well," said Hugh, "we'll see what happens to-morrow."
And now for a while nothing was said, and the silence was broken only
by the occasional whetting of a knife. Hugh peeled off the beaver skins
pretty rapidly, and by this time Jack was becoming quite skillful.
Nevertheless, the afternoon was well advanced before the last of the
pelts was freed from its carcass and they were ready to go. The eight
skins spread out on the ground made a fine showing.
"Notice that pelt, son," said Hugh, pointing to one of the hides that
was very much darker than the rest. "It isn't often you see as good a
beaver pelt as that. That one is worth any three of the others, perhaps
any four. Color counts for an awful lot in any fur, and it isn't often
that you see one so nearly black as that one, though I've seen one or
two." The pelt in question was not only very dark, but was peculiarly
fine and silky, and on parting the hair, Jack saw that the fur beneath
was also very dark.
"We'll have to take special care of that pelt," said Hugh. "It's
valuable."
It was nearly sundown when they got to camp, and by the time they had
finished supper, night was falling. Jack felt pretty tired, but no
amount of exertion ever seemed to weary Hugh.
"Your muscles must be made of wire," said Jack. "Here am I nearly tired
to death, and you seem just as fresh as you did this morning. I wish I
could stand as much as you can."
"It isn't that I'm any stronger than other people," said Hugh, "but I'm
doing work that I'm used to, and have been used to all my life; so it
isn't as hard on me as if I were doing some new job. Now, if you were
to sit me down by a table and make me write letters for two or three
hours, I expect I'd get fearful tired, and yet I've seen your uncle sit
down and write all day long, from morning until supper time at night,
and it never seemed to tire him a bit. It's all in being used to your
work."
"Yes," said Jack, "I expect there's a whole lot in that."
"Now, son," said Hugh, "if we're going to try those bears to-morrow
we'll have to go up on the prairie and make a circle to get into that
ravine, and then come down to the place we're going to shoot from. Of
course, it may be that the bears won't be there, and in that case we'll
just go on to our traps. We'll have to leave the horses somewhere up
in the ravine, where they'll be out of sight, and then go back for
them. Of course, if by any chance the wind should be wrong, we won't
see anything of the bears, but if it's right still, or if the wind
is from the west, we may get a shot. I don't think we need to start
out specially early, but, of course, we want to get there soon after
sun-up."
It was quite light next morning when they rode up on the prairie and
headed north to cross the ravine, from which they hoped to approach the
bears, and the sun had risen some time before they reached it. From
time to time they got glimpses of the stream valley, which showed them
where they were, and at last Hugh turned to the left and rode down a
little ravine which soon became deeper. Presently he stopped and said
to Jack, "Son, you stay here with the horses and let me go ahead and
look down at the stream, so that I can find out just where we are.
I think this is the coulée we were looking for, but I'm not quite
sure of it"; and he strode off down the gulch. A little later he came
back, saying, "This is the place, and down here only a short distance
is a clump of brush where we can tie up our horses." After leaving
the horses, they went forward on foot, walking in the bottom of the
ravine, whose high banks on either side concealed them, and as they
approached the stream Jack began to recognize the different features
of the landscape and knew just where their skinning ground was. Soon
the little knoll that they had spoken of the day before came in sight,
and there they left the ravine and walked toward the hill's crest.
There was no wind, and Jack felt sure that if the bears were there they
would get a shot. As they cautiously lifted their bared heads above the
fringe of grass on the crest of the hill, they saw the place where they
had been sitting yesterday lighted up by the clear rays of the newly
risen sun. Under one of the trees was a tawny bundle, of which Jack
could make nothing. He was only sure that it had not been there the day
before, but a little to the right of this bundle was a bear sitting
on her haunches and looking out down the stream and almost directly
at them, and Jack heard Hugh whisper, "Better shoot quick, son, she's
liable to see us any second. I'll take one of the cubs."
[Illustration: A BEAR, SITTING ON HER HAUNCHES, WAS LOOKING ALMOST
DIRECTLY AT THEM.--_Page 186._]
Jack slowly raised his rifle to his shoulder, but even his deliberate
movement must have been seen by the bear, for she sprang to her feet
just as he pulled the trigger, and he felt certain that he had scored a
miss. At the instant that he fired, the bundle under the tree separated
itself into two little bears, one of which instantly scrambled up the
tree, while the other ran toward its mother. A shot rang out from
Hugh's rifle, but Jack's eyes were fixed on the old bear and he could
not see the result.
At Jack's shot, the old bear had started directly toward the crest of
the knoll from which it had come, and Jack was astonished at the speed
with which she approached. He slipped another cartridge into his rifle
and fired again, apparently without effect, and again, but still the
bear came on, and by this time she was not more than thirty yards off,
coming up the gentle slope at railroad speed.
Jack heard Hugh say, "Steady, son, steady. Keep your wits about you.
Run off a few yards to your left and I'll go to the right, and let the
next shot be plumb center." Jack made a couple of jumps to the left and
whirled and again threw up his gun. As he did so he saw that the bear
was running toward Hugh, who was at some little distance to the right.
Jack fired well in advance of the bear's shoulder, and at the shot she
fell to the ground, but instantly sprang to her feet and continued her
course toward Hugh. She had come within two or three jumps of him when
his rifle spoke, and the bear collapsed upon the prairie. Hugh had
reloaded and sprung to one side and stood waiting. He called out to
Jack, "Hold on a bit, son, don't go near her. She is dead enough, but
we'll give her time to finish dying." In a moment or two the bear gave
a few convulsive struggles and stretched out her legs and was indeed
dead.
"How came it you didn't stop her with your first shot, son?" said Hugh.
"Why," said Jack, "didn't you notice that she saw us and moved just as
I fired?"
"Well," said Hugh, "she surely kept coming. I want to see where all
those shots went, and why she didn't die quicker. Your last shot would
have killed her in a short time, but she might have run fifty or sixty
yards, and have torn up two or three men before she died. Let's look at
her."
As they took hold of the animal to turn her over she did not seem very
large, yet they found her so heavy that it was not easy to turn her on
to her back, and they could not have lifted her from the ground. In
the forehead, over and just inside of the right eye, the ball that had
stopped her final rush had entered and had passed through the brain.
Jack's last ball had struck her just behind the elbow, and had passed
through the heart. A wound was found where a ball had cut across the
belly just back of the ribs, and Jack concluded that this was his first
shot. They could not find his other balls, but those, if they had hit
her, would be seen when the bear was skinned.
"What became of the cubs, Hugh?" said Jack, as they arose from their
examination. As he spoke, there was a scraping sound behind them, and
turning their eyes toward the timber, the little bear that had been up
a tree was seen to reach the ground and to disappear among the trees
before there was time for either of them to pick up his rifle.
"Well," said Hugh, "that little cuss rather played it on us, didn't he?
One of us ought to have gone down there and killed him--that is, if we
wanted him--of course, his hide wouldn't be of any special use; it's
only that it sounds more like something to kill three bears than it
does to kill two."
"Then you got the other cub, did you, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Yes," said Hugh, "he sort o' stopped to look when his mother began to
run, and I killed him."
"Well," said Jack, "we've got quite a job on our hands now with two
bears to skin and our traps to take up."
"Right you are," agreed Hugh, "we've got a full day's work. Now, what
do you think? I believe the best thing for us to do is to take up these
traps, skin these bears and whatever beaver we get, and then to move
along?"
"Yes," said Jack, "I guess that's the best thing to do. As you said
the other night, we didn't come out here to do hard work all summer,
and it's certainly better fun to be traveling around than it is to be
skinning beaver all day. We ought to get some more beaver on other
creeks, I should think, but even if we don't, we've got enough to make
a half dozen beaver robes."
"Well," said Hugh, "we don't want to be wasting any more time than we
have to. Now, shall I sit here and skin this bear, and leave you to go
and pick up the traps, or will you skin the bear and let me go for the
traps?"
"Which do you think would be better, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Well, there's hard work enough in either job," said Hugh, "but I think
if I were you I'd sit here and do the skinning, and let me go for the
traps. If we get any beaver, there'll be quite a lot of pulling and
hauling and carrying to do, getting the beaver and the traps both out
and loading them onto the horses."
"All right," said Jack, "I'll go at this old lady at once, then, and
when you go back for the horses, bring Pawnee along and leave him here
with me."
Jack got out his skinning knife and whetstone and at once set himself
at the task of skinning the bear, while Hugh returned up the ravine,
and before long came back leading the two pack horses and Jack's riding
horse.