RAID ON A BEAVER SETTLEMENT.
They now occupied every moment, from daylight and before, till in the
evening, in hunting bears, digging out coons, stretching and scraping
the skins, and trapping beaver and foxes.
The camp inside was hung around with skins, and outside the snow was
covered with the bodies of the different animals, which attracted the
wolves in troops, and the woods resounded with their howlings.
Uncle Isaac set a steel trap in a spring of water, and caught two
silver-gray foxes. He now took four of the large mackerel-hooks,
fastened them together, and wound them with twine, so as to form a
grappling, fastened a strong cord, made of twisted deer sinews, to
them, dipped them in grease, permitting it to cool after every dip,
till the hooks were all covered in the great bunch of grease, fastened
the rope to a tree, and kept watch. It was not long before a hungry
wolf swallowed the ball of grease, and, the hooks sticking in his
throat, he was caught. The steel traps, which were very scarce in
that day, and were all imported, were used for beaver, otter, and two
of them for foxes; the other animals were taken in dead-falls and
box-traps.
As they had a frow, to split out boards, and a saw, they made many
box-traps, putting them together with wooden pins, and in them caught
great numbers of minks and muskrats; they also killed many deer and
moose.
The traps for beaver were set in holes cut in the ice, and the bait
was scented, and made attractive with the composition in Uncle Isaac’s
vials. Another method was to dig a pit in the ground, make a road to it
with stakes, then hang a board between the stakes, so nicely balanced,
that, when the animal stepped upon it, it would turn, and let him into
the pit. In order to attract the game, the bait was dragged along the
ground, that it might leave its scent between the line of stakes, then
placed beyond the pit, that the animal, in following up the scent,
might step on the trap. The dead-falls were constructed by making an
enclosure of stakes, open at one end, inside of which a piece of wood
was laid on the ground crosswise, and fastened. They then fastened a
heavy piece of hard wood to a stake with a peg, so that it would play
up and down easily: this was called the killer, the end of which was
held up by a thong of deer sinew, which went over another crotchet
stake driven into the ground. Through this stake a hole was bored, to
admit a spindle; the string which held up the killer was fastened by a
flat piece of wood, one end of which went into a notch in the stake,
the other into a notch in the end of the spindle, like the spindle of
a common box-trap; another heavy piece of wood was then placed one end
on the ground, between two stakes, to keep it from rolling, the other
on the top of the killer, to give force to the fall. When the animal
touched the spindle to which the bait was fastened, both the killer and
the stick placed on to reënforce it came down, and caught him between
the killer and the piece on the ground.
In default of an auger, it could all be made with an axe, by using
double stakes and strings, or withes. These were made larger or
smaller, according to the size of the animal to be caught; they were
surrounded with stakes, and covered on top with brush, to keep the
animal from robbing them behind, or on top. For beaver, they set them
in the paths where they went to the woods, cut a piece of wood, flat
on the upper side, four inches wide, and bevelling on the under side,
so that it would rotate, canting it down on one edge, put that edge
under the end of the spindle, and strewed over it twigs and chips of
red willow and beaver root, rubbed with medicine, and when the beaver
put his mouth or paw on the board it canted, and, lifting the end of
the spindle, sprung the trap.
For raccoons, they set them at the ends of hollow logs, and in the
little runs that led down to the ponds and brooks; and for the otter,
at the places where they rubbed when they came out of the water, and
near their sliding places. For raccoons, they baited with frogs, and
chips of bears’ and beavers’ meat, with honey dropped on it; and for
otters, with fish which they caught through holes in the ice.
As the winter wore away, thaws became more frequent, and the coons and
beaver began to awake from their half-torpid state, they caught more
and more, getting ten or twelve beavers a night.
They now separated, part of them living in the house camp, and part
at the river camp and shanty, for the greater convenience of tending
the traps, which were scattered along a range of many miles, all
assembling at the home camp on the Lord’s day, when they had a meeting.
As the season was now approaching when the ice would begin to break
up, and the frequent rains had rendered the ice transparent, so they
could see the beavers and muskrats under it, they determined to attack
them in their houses. In the first place, they prepared and sharpened a
great number of stakes, and, cutting through the ice, drove them into
the bottom of the pond, around the houses, and around the holes in the
bank, thus fastening the beavers in; then tearing down the houses with
tools they had brought with them, they knocked the beavers on the head,
and flung them out on the ice.
Beavers and muskrats will swim under the ice as long as they can hold
their breath, then breathe it out against the ice: when it has absorbed
oxygen from the water, they will take the bubble in again, and go on;
the boys would follow them up, and, before they had time to take in the
bubble, strike with their hatchets over them, and drive them away from
their breath, when they would soon drown, and could be cut out.
They labored unremittingly, under the wildest excitement, stopping
neither to eat nor drink till nearly sundown, when, bathed in
perspiration, every house was in ruins, and the ice thickly strewn
with dead beavers: they then desisted.
“We are all as hot as we can be,” said Uncle Isaac. “The first thing to
be done is to put on our clothes, and make a fire to cool off by. We’ve
got about four tons of beaver carcasses here: it would take all night
to haul them to the camp; and if we leave them here, all the wolves in
the woods will be on hand, and not a hide of them be left by morning.
So I don’t see any other way than to build a camp, and stay here; and
we can have our choice, either to take them into the camp, or sit up by
turns, and watch them.”
“I say take them into the camp,” said Joe Griffin. “And here’s just the
place to build it, on this old windfall.”
“Now, Charlie,” said Uncle Isaac, “while we are building a camp, you
and John run to the home camp, and get the kettle, a birch dish, and
some tea.”
The rude shelter, sufficient for these hardy men, was soon completed,
the beaver brought inside, and a fire built. Uncle Isaac proposed, as
they had met with such luck, that they should have a beaver singed for
supper. “They could afford it,” he said, “though, of course, it spoilt
the skin.”
This was unanimously agreed to, when, picking out one of the youngest
and fattest, they cut off his tail, scalded and scraped off the scales,
then, holding the rest over the fire, singed off all the hair, and
scraped it clean with their knives. While Joe was turning the spit, and
John making tea, Charlie noticed Uncle Isaac picking out some of the
dryest of the wood, and piling it up a little distance from the camp,
and putting beneath it a parcel of birch bark, as if he was going to
light a fire.
“What are you going to do?” asked Charlie.
The old gentleman would give him no answer, only saying, with a knowing
look, that he would see before morning.
The beaver, being roasted, was placed in the birch dish. Sitting round
it, these hungry men, who had eaten nothing since long before the break
of day, made fierce onslaught with their hunting-knives. For nearly
half an hour no sound was heard but that of vigorous mastication, and
the crackling of the fire. At length Joe, after looking round upon his
companions and the great pile of game with a look of the most intense
satisfaction, and speaking thick, with a rib of beaver between his
teeth, broke the silence by saying “Haven’t we done it this time, Uncle
Isaac?”
“Yes, Joseph,” replied the old hunter, speaking with great
deliberation, and giving the name in full, a habit he had when much
pleased, “we certainly have. I’ve been trapping in the woods winters,
more or less, ever since I was a boy, with the Indians, and when the
beavers were a great deal more plenty than they are now; but I never
saw near so many taken at one time before.”
Some time during the night, John, who slept nearest to the door, was
awakened by a concert of sounds so horrible that it caused him to jump
right up on his feet, with a cry that awoke the rest, and, grasping Joe
by the shoulder, exclaimed, “For Heaven’s sake, what is it?”
“It’s wolves,” said Uncle Isaac. “I was calculating on them: they scent
the roast meat; the fire has burnt low, and that emboldens them. Throw
on some wood, Joe; they must be taught to keep their distance, or
there’ll be no sleep,” said he; and taking up a brand, he set fire to
the pile outside, which lighting up the forest, the wolves withdrew,
but still kept up their howling at a distance. It was now evident why
Uncle Isaac had prepared the pile of wood out doors.
“We were careless,” said he, “to let the fire get so low, and might
have paid dearly for it.”
“Why,” said John, “will they tackle men?”
“Yes, when there is a drove of them, and they are hungry: they are
cowardly, cruel creeturs; I hate ’em,” said he, as they stood gazing
on the gaunt forms flitting among the trees just beyond the line of
fire-light, licking their dry jaws, and snapping their tusks. One
old gray wolf, who seemed to be a leader, followed the track made by
dragging the bodies of the beavers to the very edge of the shadow cast
by the woods, so that his head and shoulders were distinctly visible.
“Only see the cruel varmint!” said Uncle Isaac; “see those jaws and
tusks, and that great red tongue. We ought not to waste powder, but
that fellow tempts a man too much: fire at him, John; aim for his eyes,
and I’ll finish him if you don’t.”
John, needing no second admonition, fired on the instant, when the
wolf, leaping forward, fell his whole length in the snow, and, rolling
over a few times, stretched out, quivered, and became motionless.
“I mean to skin him in the morning,” said John.
“Then you must put him in the camp; for if he lies there, nothing will
be left of him in the morning but bones.”
“Why, will the wolves eat each other?”
“Eat each other? Yes, just as quick as they’ll eat anything else.
There’s no Christianity in ’em. They will dig up a dead body in a
graveyard.”
“But how shall I get him?” said John, who, after this revelation, did
not feel much like trusting himself far from the fire.
Uncle Isaac seized a brand, and, waving it in the air, the wolves
retreated, and John took the dead wolf by the hind legs, and drew him
to the fire.
After replenishing both fires with fuel, they lay down again, and were
soon fast asleep, except John and Charlie, from whose eyes the events
of the evening and the howling of the wolves had effectually banished
sleep until near daybreak, when they too sank into a sound slumber.
They now broke into the other beaver houses, and, as the weather grew
warmer, tapped the maples, procured sap to drink, and made sugar; and,
as they could boil but little in their camp-kettle, they froze the sap.
This took the water out, and reduced the quantity, leaving that which
remained very sweet, and so much less in quantity to boil down.