“That's for Annette,” said Rolf, remembering his promise as he hung the
stretched marten skin to dry.
“Yi! Yi! Yi!” came three yelps, just as he had heard them the day he
first met Quonab, and crossing the narrow lake he saw his partner's
canoe.
“We have found the good hunting,” he said, as Rolf steadied the canoe at
the landing and Skookum, nearly well again, wagged his entire ulterior
person to welcome the wanderer home. The first thing to catch the boy's
eye was a great, splendid beaver skin stretched on a willow hoop.
“Ho, ho!” he exclaimed.
“Ugh; found another pond.”
“Good, good,” said Rolf as he stroked the first beaver skin he had ever
seen in the woods.
“This is better,” said Quonab, and held up the two barkstones, castors,
or smell-glands that are found in every beaver and which for some hid
reason have an irresistible attraction for all wild animals. To us the
odour is slight, but they have the power of intensifying, perpetuating,
and projecting such odorous substances as may be mixed with them.
No trapper considers his bait to be perfect without a little of the
mysterious castor. So that that most stenchable thing they had already
concocted of fish-oil, putrescence, sewer-gas, and sunlight, when
commingled and multiplied with the dried-up powder of a castor, was
intensified into a rich, rancid, gas-exhaling hell-broth as rapturously
bewitching to our furry brothers as it is poisonously nauseating to
ourselves--seductive afar like the sweetest music, inexorable as fate,
insidious as laughing-gas, soothing and numbing as absinthe--this, the
lure and caution-luller, is the fellest trick in all the trappers' code.
As deadly as inexplicable, not a few of the states have classed it with
black magic and declared its use a crime.
But no such sentiment prevailed in the high hills of Quonab's time, and
their preparations for a successful trapping season were nearly perfect.
Thirty deadfalls made by Quonab, with the sixty made on the first trip
and a dozen steel traps, were surely promise of a good haul. It was
nearly November now; the fur was prime; then why not begin? Because
the weather was too fine. You must have frosty weather or the creatures
taken in the deadfalls are spoiled before the trapper can get around.
Already a good, big pile of wood was cut; both shanty and storeroom
were chinked, plugged, and banked for the winter. It was not safe yet to
shoot and store a number of deer, but there was something they could do.
Snowshoes would soon be a necessary of life; and the more of this finger
work they did while the weather was warm, the better.
Birch and ash are used for frames; the former is less liable to split,
but harder to work. White ash was plentiful on the near flat, and a
small ten-foot log was soon cut and split into a lot of long laths.
Quonab of course took charge; but Rolf followed in everything. Each took
a lath and shaved it down evenly until an inch wide and three quarters
of an inch thick. The exact middle was marked, and for ten inches at
each side of that it was shaved down to half an inch in thickness. Two
flat crossbars, ten and twelve inches long, were needed and holes to
receive these made half through the frame. The pot was ready boiling and
by using a cord from end to end of each lath they easily bent it in the
middle and brought the wood into touch with the boiling water. Before an
hour the steam had so softened the wood, and robbed it of spring, that
it was easy to make it into any desired shape. Each lath was cautiously
bent round; the crossbars slipped into their prepared sockets; a
temporary lashing of cord kept all in place; then finally the frames
were set on a level place with the fore end raised two inches and a
heavy log put on the frame to give the upturn to the toe.
Here they were left to dry and the Indian set about preparing the
necessary thongs. A buckskin rolled in wet, hard wood ashes had been
left in the mud hole. Now after a week the hair was easily scraped off
and the hide, cleaned and trimmed of all loose ends and tags, was spread
out--soft, white, and supple. Beginning outside, and following round and
round the edge, Quonab cut a thong of rawhide as nearly as possible a
quarter inch wide. This he carried on till there were many yards of it,
and the hide was all used up. The second deer skin was much smaller and
thinner. He sharpened his knife and cut it much finer, at least half the
width of the other. Now they were ready to lace the shoes, the finer for
the fore and back parts, the heavy for the middle on which the wearer
treads. An expert squaw would have laughed at the rude snowshoes that
were finished that day, but they were strong and serviceable.
Naturally the snowshoes suggested a toboggan. That was easily made by
splitting four thin boards of ash, each six inches wide and ten feet
long. An up-curl was steamed on the prow of each, and rawhide lashings
held all to the crossbars.