CAMPING.
Monday morning it was splendid walking on the crust; they made a long
day’s march, travelling till dark. Making a fire at the root of a tree,
they flung some brush on the snow, and laid down in their blankets in
the open air to sleep. Continuing to follow the bank of the little
stream, they started some moose about ten o’clock in the day; the
crust would bear them, but not the moose, who broke through at every
step, staining the snow with their blood. In those days moose were
more abundant in Maine than any other part of New England. Pursuing
them till sundown, they succeeded in capturing one, and camped on the
trail. In the morning, resuming the pursuit, they soon came in sight of
the herd, but such is the power of this animal, that, notwithstanding
the advantage which snow-shoes gave the men, it was the middle of the
afternoon before they came up with them, and succeeded in killing four
more. Relinquishing the pursuit, which now promised to lead them in a
different direction from that in which they wished to go, they dressed
the moose, hung him on the trees out of the reach of wolves, and
wrapping themselves in the skins, laid down on the snow to sleep.
“Joe,” said Uncle Isaac, “how far do you judge we are from the spot the
young man told you of?”
“I reckon about a mile.”
“Well, I hunted over some of this ground twenty years ago, with the
Indians, off to the east’rd, and then again to the north’rd of us,
where there are many ponds, some of them having outlets one into the
other. Suppose, while we are cooking some breakfast, you put on your
snow-shoes and take a look, and, if you think best, we’ll make a
permanent camp somewhere hereabouts; and as we’ve got to live in it a
good while, we’ll make it well.”
In a short time Joe returned, saying, “I found the place, and there are
beavers enough.”
They immediately set about building their camp, and determined to make
it as home-like and comfortable as possible. It was made of logs, from
which all the knots and bunches were trimmed, and the crevices between
them stuffed with moss from the trees.
Since they had come on the snow with sledges, they were enabled to
bring a great deal more weight than if they had set out before the snow
came, as, in addition to the sledges, they also carried light packs,
and moreover intended to build canoes, and return in the spring by the
river.
Uncle Isaac, thoroughly versed in wood-craft, and always thoughtful,
had brought an auger, draw-shave, and a small saw on his sledge.
They split out cedar shingles, with the frow, four feet long, fastening
them to the rafters and purlins, with poles held down with wooden
pins and withes. Upon these they put brush to break the dash of the
rain, and prevent the rain and snow from being driven by force of the
wind under the shingles, as they intended it for a permanent camp, in
which to leave furs and provisions during their absence on trapping
and hunting excursions. They made a solid door of cedar plank, hung on
wooden hinges, a deacon’s seat, and a rack around the sides, covered
with hemlock and cedar brush, for bedsteads.
“We ought to have a stool or two,” said Uncle Isaac; “we want something
we can move round; we can’t move the deacon’s seat, and we can’t move
the fire.”
He cut down a spruce that had long straight limbs and cut some chunks
from the top three feet long, leaving a sufficient number of limbs on
each side for legs; he split the pieces in halves, and smoothed the
split side with a draw-shave.
“There,” said he, setting it up before the wondering boys, “there’s
a backwoodsman’s stool: them are legs won’t want any gluing, and if
anybody wants a cushion, they can put some moss on it.”
While Uncle Isaac was at work on the stools, Charlie, Joe, and John
were splitting out boards to make a table.
“The first stormy day that comes,” said Uncle Isaac, “I’ll make some
bark dishes, and the rest of you can make some spoons, and we’ll have
some shelves; it’s just as well to be comfortable. There’s just one
thing we do want desperately; that is, a fireplace, to keep the fire
from spreading all over the camp, taking up so much room, and also a
chimney, instead of a hole in the roof.”
“We can build a fireplace of green logs,” said Joe.
“Yes, but it will burn out in a short time.”
“I wonder if we couldn’t find some rocks or clay somewhere; or is
everything froze fast?”
“I don’t believe but by cutting a little ice, we could find stones,
and clay too, in the river. It don’t freeze hard here in the woods, as
it does out in the clear.”
The snow had come that year before the ground froze, and under the bank
of the stream they found clay and flat stones, of which they built a
fireplace, and the chimney of sticks of wood and clay.
“There’s no end to wants,” said Uncle Isaac; “now I want some
birch-bark dishes.”
“You’ll have to give that up,” said John, “for the bark won’t run.”
“Won’t it? I’ll make it run.”
He warmed a birch tree with hot water, and made the bark run as well as
in the spring.
“Now get me some spruce roots, Charlie, and in evenings and rainy days
we’ll make the dishes.”
As they expected to hunt and trap over a large extent of ground, they
travelled about ten miles farther on, and built a rough shanty in among
several ponds and small streams, where they expected to find beavers,
and placed in it some provisions; then they took the back track, seven
or eight miles from the permanent camp, and built another on the
bank of the river, where they expected to find otter and mink. They
dignified the middle one with the name of the home camp; that among the
lakes they called the shanty, and the other the river camp.
“We ought to have come up and done all this before snow came,” said
Uncle Isaac; “but now we must do the best we can; perhaps we shall
blunder into good luck; people do sometimes. There would have been a
hundred beavers where there is one, if it had not been for the French
and English.”
“Why so?” asked Joe.
“Because, when the French held Canada, they put the Indians up to
breaking the dams and destroying the beaver, to spite the English; and
now the English have got Canada, they do the same, to spite us. An
Indian, of his own accord, won’t destroy game, any more than a farmer
would destroy his seed-corn: when they break into a beaver house, they
always throw back the young ones, and part of the old, to breed; but a
white man takes the whole, because he’s afraid, if he don’t, the next
white trapper will.”
Beavers are industrious and provident, not, like other animals that
live by the chase and the slaughter of other creatures, subject to a
lack of food; they are protected in their houses from violence, and
are so prolific, that, notwithstanding the merciless warfare waged
upon them, by which they had been driven from the sea-coasts even
at that early day, they were still abundant in those wilds whither
our adventurers had followed them. The beaver is about three feet in
length, averaging in weight sixty pounds; its tail is a foot in length,
flat, and covered with scales; the feet and legs flat and short, with
a membrane between the toes; it has very strong and large cutting
teeth, the upper ones two and a half inches long, and the lower ones
three inches: with these teeth they will cut down a tree eight inches
through; and if a tree stands in just the right place, and they want
it very much, they won’t hesitate to cut it if it is a foot through.
When the beavers are two years old, they build houses, and set up for
themselves, as they don’t like to live on their parents. They breathe
air, and therefore cannot live a long time under water; neither can
they live without having constant access to the water; they are,
therefore, compelled to build in water so deep that it will not freeze
at the bottom; the entrance is under water: by diving beneath the ice,
they can get at the lily-roots on the bottom of the pond, and also
obtain access to holes in the bank, which they provide for retreat in
the event of being disturbed in their houses. They feed on the wood
and bark of trees, which they cut down and sink in front of their
houses, in order to obtain it in the winter.
Their houses are built of branches of trees, mud, and stones, from two
to six or eight feet in thickness, and, when frozen hard, bid defiance
to all attacks, save those of man. They have an elevated platform
in them, above the surface of the water, on which they sleep. They
break the ice every night, opposite their holes in the bank, for a
breathing-hole, thus keeping it open, that in pleasant days they may go
into the woods. They often build in a pond, but generally prefer to dam
a brook, and make their own pond; then, when they want wood to repair
their houses or dams, or for provision in winter, they can make a raft
up stream and, getting on to it, float down with the stream, steering
with their paws.
After completing their camp, and making all their arrangements, they
approached the spot, and perceived that the animals had dammed a large
brook. In the midst of the pond thus formed, surrounded by snow and
ice, which covered them nearly to their tops, were twelve large beaver
houses. All was still as death: the sun shone clear on the snow-covered
houses, beneath which, in a half-torpid state, the beavers were
reposing, most effectually sheltered from the cold and from beasts of
prey. Safe beneath the ice was their winter supply of food: all they
had to do when hungry was to go a few feet, and obtain it.
The party walked carefully over the ice, and Uncle Isaac pointed out to
the boys the breathing-holes in it.
“Well,” he said, by way of summing up, “I reckon there are not less
than a hundred beavers under this snow and ice, and likely to be more
than less.”
“A hundred beavers!” cried John, in amazement.
“Yes; there’s ten in a house, old and young, I’ll warrant--not less
than ten: I’ve seen twenty-five taken out of one house. They’re not
ours yet, my boy!” slapping John on the shoulder.
“Be they good to eat?” asked Charlie.
“Nothing better, especially the tails. I call a singed beaver a dish to
set before a king.”
“Why do they singe them?”
“You see, a beaver in the winter is as fat as a hog, and the fat lies
on the outside; you want the skin, just as you do the rind of pork; so,
if you can afford to singe the fur all off, and lose that, he will be
just like a scalded hog. I’m in hopes we shall get enough to be able to
singe at least one.”
In the course of the day they discovered three other beaver
settlements, two of them in ponds made by damming up a brook, and the
other in a large natural pond. They also discovered otter-slides and
fishing-holes, where the otters fished a great quantity of muskrat,
dens and tracks of minks along the river banks and brooks.
“Now,” said Uncle Isaac, “let us look for bears. I’ve seen signs, more
or less, for the last two or three miles.”
“What are the signs, Uncle Isaac?” asked Charlie. “I don’t see any.”
Uncle Isaac smiled, and pointed to a clump of oaks and beeches on the
side of the brook, the top limbs of which were all bent in, and many of
them broken off.
“What do you suppose bent and broke all these limbs?”
“Why, the wind, or the snow, I suppose.”
“But neither the wind or the snow would bend them in; it would bend
them down; but these are turned up, and bent in.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Charlie. “What did?”
“Why, the bears.”
“The bears! What for?”
“Why, the bears live on acorns and beech-nuts; they go a-nutting, as
well as boys, climb up into the top of a tree, just like a cat, and,
when they’ve got as high as the limbs will bear, they sit down in the
crotch of a large limb, reach out their paws, and pull the smaller
limbs in, and eat off the beech-nuts and acorns; they will pull in and
break off a limb as big as my arm. There have been plenty of bears
round here late this fall. There are lots of them asleep under these
old windfalls, and in hollow trees, and we must find them, and mark the
trees; then we can get them when we like.”
They had not proceeded far in their search when Joe exclaimed, “I’ve
found one!”
He was standing at the foot of an enormous elm, which, being hollow,
had broken off about twenty feet from the ground.
“How do you know there is a bear there?” asked Charlie. “I don’t see
any.”
At this all laughed, when Uncle Isaac pointed out to Charlie a regular
line of grooves and scratches, extending from the bottom to the top of
the tree, left by the bear’s claws, where it had gone up and down; he
also told him that the bear went into his den in November, and remained
asleep, without eating or coming out, till spring, and that it was a
she bear, because they always lived by themselves, and in trees, if
hollow, or windfalls, if they could find them, to keep their young from
the wolves and the males; that if there was a bear there, she probably
had cubs, perhaps four, but at least two; perhaps eight, for if she had
two litters in one year, she would make a den close by for the first
cubs; both litters follow her the next summer, and the next winter all
live together. They generally weigh from three to four hundred.
They found many more dens under windfalls, and the roots of trees,
and sides of rocks, for the bear is so well protected by his thick
coat as to be nearly insensible to cold, and will content himself very
well, with a little brush for a bed, under the side of a root that has
been turned up, or a rock, though the female will seek out a hollow
tree. They discovered the dens either by scratches on the stubs, or by
noticing where the breath of the bear had stained and melted the snow.
Having marked all the places, in order to find them again, they
returned to the home camp.