The Last of the Chiefs: A Story of the Great Sioux War by Joseph A. Altsheler
Chapter VIIIThe Trap Makers
The hide of the bear, which they cured in good style, was amagnificent trophy; the fur was soft and long, and when spreadout came near covering the floor of their cabin. It was a fitmatch for the robe of the buffalo. They did not know much aboutgrizzlies, but they believed that no larger bear would ever bekilled in the Rocky Mountains.
A few days later Dick shot another buffalo in one of the defiles,but this was a young cow and her flesh was tender. They lived ona portion of it from day to day and the rest they cured and putin the Annex. They added the robe to their store of furs.
"I'm thinking," said Dick, "that you and I, Al, might turn furhunters." This seems to be an isolated corner of the mountains.It may have been tapped out long ago, but when man goes away thegame comes back. We've got a comfortable house, and, with thisas a basis, we might do better hunting furs here than if we werehunting gold in California, where the chances are always againstyou.
The idea appealed to Albert, but for the present they contentedthemselves with improving their house and surroundings. Otherbears, cougars, and wolves came at night and prowled around theAnnex, but it was secure against them all, and Dick and Albertnever troubled themselves again to keep awake and watch for suchintruders.
Winter now advanced and it was very cold, but, to Dick's greatrelief, no snow came. It was on Albert's account that he wishedair and earth to remain dry, and it seemed as if Nature weredoing her best to help the boy's recovery. The cough did notcome again, he had no more spells of great exhaustion, thephysical uplift became mental also, and his spirits, because ofthe rebound, fairly bubbled. He was full of ideas, continuallymaking experiments, and had great plans in regard to the valleyand Castle Howard, as he sometimes playfully called their cabin.
One of the things that pleased Albert most was his diversion ofwater from a hot spring about fifty yards from the cabin andhigher up the ravine. He dug a trench all the way from the poolto the house, and the hot water came bubbling down to their verydoor. It cooled, of course, a little on the way, but it wasstill warm enough for cooking purposes, and Albert was hugelydelighted.
"Hot water! Cold water! Whatever you wish, Dick," he said;"just turn on the tap. If my inventive faculty keeps on growing,I'll soon have a shower bath, hot and cold, rigged up here."
"It won't grow enough for that," said Dick; "but I want to tellyou, Al, that the big game in the valley is increasing at aremarkable rate. Although cold, it's been a very open winter sofar, but I suppose the instinct of these animals warns them toseek a sheltered place in time."
"Instinct or the habit of endless generations," said Albert.
"Which may be the same thing," rejoined Dick.
"There's a whole herd of elk beyond the far end of the lake, I'venoticed on the cliffs what I take to be mountain sheep, andthirty or forty buffalos at least must be ranging about in here."
"Then," said Albert, "let's have a try at the buffaloes. Theirrobes will be worth a lot when we go back to civilization, andthere is more room left in the Annex."
They took their repeaters and soon proved Dick's words to betrue. In a sheltered meadow three or more miles up the valleythey found about twenty buffaloes grazing. Each shot down a fatcow, and they could have secured more had not the minds of bothboys rebelled at the idea of slaughter.
"It's true we'd like to have the robes," said Dick, "but we'dhave to leave most of the carcasses rotting here. Even with thewonderful appetites that we've developed, we couldn't eat a wholebuffalo herd in one winter."
But after they had eaten the tongue, brisket, and tenderloin ofthe two cows, while fresh, these being the tenderest and bestparts of the buffalo, they added the rest of the meat to theirstores in the Annex. As they had done already in several cases,they jerked it, a most useful operation that observant Dick hadlearned when they were with the wagon train.
It took a lot of labor and time to jerk the buffaloes, butneither boy had a lazy bone in him, and time seemed to stretchaway into eternity before them. They cut the flesh into long,thin strips, taking it all from the bones. Then all these pieceswere thoroughly mixed with salt--fortunately, they could obtainan unlimited supply of salt by boiling out the water from thenumerous salt springs in the valley--chiefly by pounding andrubbing. They let these strips remain inside the hides aboutthree hours, then all was ready for the main process of jerking.
Albert had been doing the salting and Dick meanwhile had beengetting ready the frame for the jerking. He drove four forkedpoles into the ground, in the form of a square and about sevenfeet apart. The forks were between four and five feet above theground. On opposite sides of the square, from fork to fork, helaid two stout young poles of fresh, green wood. Then from poleto pole he laid many other and smaller poles, generally about aninch apart. They laid the strips of buffalo meat, taken fromtheir salt bath, upon the network of small poles, and beneaththey built a good fire of birch, ash, and oak.
"Why, it makes me think of a smokehouse at home," said Albert.
"Same principle," said Dick, "but if you let that fire underthere go out, Al, I'll take one of those birch rods and give youthe biggest whaling you ever had in your life. You're strongenough now to stand a good licking."
Albert laughed. He thought his big brother Dick about thegreatest fellow on earth. But he paid assiduous attention to thefire, and Dick did so, too. They kept it chiefly a great bed ofcoals, never allowing the flames to rise as high as the buffalomeat, and they watched over it twenty-four hours. In order tokeep this watch, they deserted the cabin for a night, sleeping byturns before the fire under the frame of poles, which was nohardship to them.
The fierce timber wolves came again in the night, attracted bythe savory odor of buffalo meat; and once they crept near andwere so threatening that Albert, whose turn it was at the watch,became alarmed. He awakened Dick, and, in order to teach thesedangerous marauders a lesson, they shot two of them. Then theshrewd animals, perceiving that the two-legged beasts by the firecarried something very deadly with which they slew at a distance,kept for a while to the forest and out of sight.
After the twenty-four hours of fire drying, the buffalo meat wasgreatly reduced in weight and bulk, though it was packed as fullas ever with sustenance. It was now cured, that is, jerked, andwould keep any length of time. While the frame was ready theyjerked an elk, two mule deer, a big silver-tip bear that Dickshot on the mountain side, and many fish that they caught in thelake and the little river. They would scale the fish, cut themopen down the back, and then remove the bone. After that theflesh was jerked on the scaffold in the same way that the meat ofthe buffalo and deer was treated.
Before these operations were finished, the big timber wolvesbegan to be troublesome again. Neither boy dared to be anywherenear the jerking stage without a rifle or revolver, and Dickfinally invented a spring pole upon which they could put thefresh meat that was waiting its turn to be prepared--they didnot want to carry the heavy weight to the house for safety, andthen have to bring it back again.
While Dick's spring pole was his own invention, as far as he wasconcerned, it was the same as that used by thousands of othertrappers and hunters. He chose a big strong sapling which Albertand he with a great effort bent down. Then he cut off a numberof the boughs high up, and in each crotch fastened a big piece ofmeat. The sapling was then allowed to spring back into place andthe meat was beyond the reach of wolf.
But the wolves tried for it, nevertheless. Dick awakened Albertthe first night after this invention was tried and asked him ifhe wished to see a ghost dance. Albert, wrapped to his eyes inthe great buffalo robe, promptly sat up and looked.
They had filled four neighboring saplings with meat, and at leasttwenty wolves were gathered under them, looking skyward, but notat the sky--it was the flesh of elk and buffalo that they gazedat so longingly, and delicious odors that they knew assailedtheir nostrils.
But the wolf is an enterprising animal. He does not merely sitand
One wolf, the biggest of the lot, leaped. It was a fine leap,and might have won him a championship among his kind, but he didnot reach the prize. His teeth snapped together, touching onlyone another, and he fell. Albert imagined that he could hear adisappointed growl. Another wolf leaped, the chief leaped again,a third, a fourth, and a fifth leaped, and then all began to leaptogether.
The air was full of flying wolfish forms, going up or comingdown. They went up, hearts full of hope, and came down, mouthsempty of everything but disappointed foam. Teeth savagely hitteeth, and growls of wrath were abundant. Albert felt aridiculous inclination to laugh. The whole affair presented itsludicrous aspect to him.
"Did you ever see so much jumping for so little reward?" hewhispered to Dick.
"No, not unless they're taking exercise to keep themselves thin,although I never heard of a fat wolf."
But a wolf does not give up easily. They continued to leapfaster and faster, and now and then a little higher than before,although empty tooth still struck empty tooth. Now and then awolf more prone to complaint than the others lifted up his voiceand howled his rage and chagrin to the moon. It was a genuinemoan, a long, whining cry that echoed far through the forest andalong the slopes, and whenever Albert heard it he felt morestrongly than ever the inclination to laugh.
"I suppose that a wolf's woes are as real as our own," hewhispered, "but they do look funny and act funny."
"Strikes me the same way," replied Dick with a grin. "Butthey're robbers, or would be if they could. That meat's ours,and they're trying to get it."
It was in truth a hard case for the wolves. They were very bigand very strong. Doubtless, the selfsame wolf that had beendriven away from the Annex by the mountain lion was among them,and all of them were atrociously hungry. It was not merely anodor now, they could also see the splendid food hanging justabove their heads. Never before had they leaped so persistently,so ardently, and so high, but there was no reward, absolutelynone. Not a tooth felt the touch of flesh. The wolves lookedaround at one another jealously, but the record was as clean astheir teeth. There had been no surreptitious captures.
"Will they keep it up all night?" whispered Albert.
"Can't say," replied Dick. "We'll just watch."
All the wolves presently stopped leaping and crouched on theearth, staring straight up at the prizes which hung, as ever,most tantalizingly out of reach. The moonlight fell full uponthem, a score or more, and Albert fancied that he could see theirhungry, disappointed eyes. The spectacle was at once weird andludicrous. Albert felt again that temptation to laugh, but herestrained it.
Suddenly the wolves, as if it were a preconcerted matter, utteredone long, simultaneous howl, full, alike in its rising andfalling note, of pain, anguish, and despair, then they were gonein such swiftness and silence that it was like the instantmelting of ghosts into thin air. It took a little effort of willto persuade Albert that they had really been there.
"They've given it up," he said. "The demon dancers have gone."
"Demon dancers fits them," said Dick. "It's a good name.Yes, they've gone, and I don't think they'll come back. Wolvesare smart, they know when they're wasting time."
When they finished jerking their buffalo meat and venison, Dicktook the fine double-barreled shotgun which they had used butlittle hitherto, and went down to the lake in search of succulentwaterfowl. The far shore of the lake was generally very high,but on the side of the cabin there were low places, littleshallow bays, the bottoms covered with grass, which were muchfrequented by wild geese and wild ducks, many of which, owing tothe open character of the winter, had not yet gone southward.The ducks, in particular, muscovy, mallard, teal, widgeon, andother kinds, the names of which Dick did not know, werenumerous. They had been molested so little that they were quitetame, and it was so easy to kill them in quantities that theelement of sport was entirely lacking.
Dick did not fancy shooting at a range of a dozen yards or sointo a dense flock of wild ducks that would not go away, and hewished also to save as many as he could of their shot cartridges,for he had an idea that he and his brother would remain in thevalley a long time. But both he and Albert wanted good suppliesof duck and geese, which were certainly toothsome and succulent,and they were taking a pride, too, in filling the Annex with thebest things that the mountains could afford. Hence Dick did somedeep thinking and finally evolved a plan, being aided in histhoughts by earlier experience in Illinois marshes.
He would trap the ducks and geese instead of shooting them, andhe and Albert at once set about the task of making the trap.This idea was not original with Dick. As so many others havebeen, he was, in part, and unconscious imitator. He planted inthe shallow water a series of hoops, graded in height, thelargest being in the deepest water, while they diminishedsteadily in size as they came nearer to the land. They made thehoops of split saplings, and planted them about four feet apart.
Then the covered all these hoops with a netting, the total lengthof which was about twenty-five feet. They also faced each hoopwith a netting, leaving an aperture large enough for the ducts toenter. It was long and tedious work to make the netting, as thiswas done by cutting the hide of an elk and the hide of a muledeer into strips and plaiting the strips on the hoops. They thenhad a network tunnel, at the smaller end of which theyconstructed an inclosure five or six feet square by means ofstout poles which they thrust into the mud, and the same networkcovering which they used on the tunnel.
"It's like going in at the big end of a horn and coming out atthe little one into a cell," said Albert. "Will it work?"
"Work?" replied Dick. "Of course, it will. You just wait andyou'll see."
Albert looked out upon the lake, where many ducks were swimmingabout placidly, and he raised his hand.
"Oh, foolish birds!" he apostrophized. "Here is your enemy,man, making before your very eyes the snare that will lead you todestruction, and you go on taking no notice, thinking that thesunshine will last forever for you."
"Shut up, Al," said Dick, "you'll make me feel sorry for thoseducks. Besides, you're not much of a poet, anyway."
When the trap was finished they put around the mouth and allalong the tunnel quantities of the grass and herbs that the ducksseemed to like, and then Dick announced that the enterprise wasfinished.
"We have nothing further to do about it," he said, "but to takeout our ducks."
It was toward twilight when they finished the trap, and both hadbeen in the cold water up to their knees. Dick had long sincebecome hardened to such things, but he looked at Albert ratheranxiously. The younger boy, however, did not begin to cough. Hemerely hurried back to the fire, took off his wet leggings, andtoasted his feet and legs. Then he ate voraciously and sleptlike a log the night through. But both he and Dick went down tothe lake the next morning with much eagerness to see what thetrap contained, if anything.
It was a fresh winter morning, not cold enough to freeze thesurface of the lake, but extremely crisp. The air contained theextraordinary exhilarating quality which Dick had noticed whenthey first came into the mountains, but which he had neverbreathed anywhere else. It seemed to him to make everythingsparkle, even his blood, and suddenly he leaped up, cracked hisheels together, and shouted.
"Why, Dick," exclaimed Albert, "what on earth is the matter withyou?"
"Nothing is the matter with me. Instead, all's right. I'm soglad I'm alive, Al, old man, that I wanted to shout out the factto all creation."
"Feel that way myself," said Albert, "and since you've given sucha good example, think I'll do as you did."
He leaped up, cracked his heels together, and let out a yell thatthe mountains sent back in twenty echoes
As they approached the trap, they heard a great squawking andcackling and found that the cell, as Albert called the squareinclosure, contained ten ducks and two geese swimming about in agreat state of trepidation. They had come down the windingtunnel and through the apertures in the hoops, but they did nothave sense enough to go back the same way. Instead they merelyswam around the square and squawked.
"Now, aren't they silly?" exclaimed Albert. "With the door tofreedom open, they won't take it."
"I wonder," said Dick philosophically, "if we human beings arenot just the same. Perhaps there are easy paths out of ourtroubles lying right before us and superior creatures up in theair somewhere are always wondering why we are such fools that wedon't see them."
"Shut up, Dick," said Albert, "your getting too deep. I've nodoubt that in our net are some ducks that are rated asuncommonly intelligent ducks as ducks go."
They forgot all about philosophy a few moments later when theybegan to dispose of their capture. They took them out, one byone, through a hole that they made in the cell and cut off theirheads. The net was soon full up again, and they caught all theducks and geese they wanted with such ridiculous ease that at theend of a week they took it down and stored it in the cabin.
They jerked the ducks and geese that they did not need forimmediate use, and used the feathers to stuff beds and pillowsfor themselves. The coverings of these beds were furs which theystitched together with the tendons of the deer.
They began to be annoyed about this time by the depredations ofmountain lions, which, attracted by the pleasant odors, came downfrom the slopes to the number of at least half a dozen, Dicksurmised, and prowled incessantly about the cabin and Annex,taking the place of the timber wolves, and proving moretroublesome and dangerous alike. One of them managed at nightto seize the edge of an elk skin that hung on the roof of thecabin, and the next morning the skin was half chewed up andwholly ruined.
Both boys were full of rage, and they watched for the lions, butfailed to get a shot at them. But Dick, out of the stores of hismemory, either some suggestion from reading, or trappers' andhunters' tales, devised a gun trap. He put a large piece offresh deer meat in the woods about a quarter of a mile from thecabin. It was gone the next morning, and the tracks about showedthat the lions had been present.
Then Dick drove two stout forked sticks into the ground, theforks being about a yard above the earth. Upon these he lashedone of their rifles. Then he cut a two-foot section of a verysmall sapling, one end of which he inserted carefully between theground that the trigger of the rifle. The other end wassupported upon a small fork somewhat higher than those supportingthe rifle. Then he procured another slender but long section ofsapling that reached from the end of the short piece in thecrotch some distance beyond the muzzle of the rifle. The endbeyond the muzzle had the stub of a bough on it, but the end inthe crotch was tied there with a strip of hide. Now, if anythingshould pull on the end of this stick, it would cause the shorterstick to spring the trigger of the rifle and discharge it. Dicktested everything, saw that all was firmly and properly in place,and the next thing to do was to bait the trap.
He selected a piece of most tempting deer meat and fastened ittightly on the hooked end of the long stick. It was obvious thatany animal pulling at this bait would cause the short stick tiedat the other end of it to press against the trigger of the rifle,and the rifle would be fired as certainly as if the trigger hadbeen pulled by the hand of man. Moreover, the barrel of therifle was parallel with the long stick, and the bullet wouldcertainly be discharged into the animal pulling at the bait.
After the bait had been put on Dick put the cartridge in therifle. He was careful to do this last, as he did not wish totake any chances with the trap while he was testing it. But heand Albert ran a little wall of brush off on either side in orderthat the cougar, if cougar it were, should be induced to approachthe muzzle directly in front. When all the work was finished,the two boys inspected it critically.
"I believe that our timber wolves would be too smart to come upto that trap," said Albert.
"Perhaps," said Dick; "but the wolf has a fine intellect, andI've never heard that the cougar or puma was particularly notedfor brain power. Anyhow, I know that traps are built for him inthis manner, and we shall see whether it will work."
"Are we going to hide somewhere near by and watch during thenight?"
"There's no need to make ourselves uncomfortable. If the gungets him, it'll get him whether we are or are not here."
"That's so," said Albert. "Well, I'm willing enough to take tothe cabin. These nights are growing pretty cold, I can tellyou."
Taking a last look at the gun trap and assuring themselves thatit was all right, they hurried away to Castle Howard. The nightwas coming on much colder than any that they had yet had, andboth were glad to get inside. Albert stirred the coals frombeneath the ashes, put on fresh wood, and soon they had a fineblaze. The light flickered over a cabin greatly improved inappearance and wonderfully snug.
The floor, except directly in front of the hearth, where sparksand coals would pop out, was covered with the well-tanned skinsof buffalo, elk, mule deer, bear, and wolf. The walls were alsothickly hung with furs, while their extra weapons, tools, andclothing hung there on hooks. It was warm, homelike, and showedall the tokens of prosperity. Dick looked around at it with anapproving eye. It was not only a house, and a good house atthat, but it was a place that one might make a base for a planthat he had in mind. Yes, circumstance had certainly favoredthem. Their own courage, skill, and energy had done the rest.
Albert soon fell asleep after supper, but Dick was more wakeful,although he did not wish to be so. It was the gun trap that kepthis eyes open. He took a pride in doing things well, and hewanted the trap to work right. A fear that it might not do soworried him, but in turn he fell into a sound sleep from which hewas awakened by a report. He thought at first that something hadstruck the house, but when his confused senses were gathered intoa focus he knew that it was a rifle shot.
"Up, Al, up!" he cried, "I think a cougar has been fooling withour trap!"
Albert jumped up. They threw on their coats and went out into adark and bitterly cold night. If they had not been so eager tosee what had happened, they would have fled back to the refuge ofthe warm cabin, but they hurried on toward the snug little hollowin which the gun trap had been placed. At fifty yards theystopped and went much more slowly, as a terrific growling andsnarling smote their ears.
"It's the cougar, and we've got him," said Dick. "He's hit bador he wouldn't be making such a terrible fuss."
They approached cautiously and saw on the ground, almost in frontof the gun, a large yellowish animal writhing about and tearingthe earth. His snarls and rage increased as he scented the twoboys drawing near.
"I think his shoulder is broken and his backbone injured," saidDick. "That's probably the reason he can't get away. I don'tlike to see him suffer and I'll finish him now."
He sent a bullet through the cougar's head and that was the endof him. In order to save it from the wolves, they took his hidefrom him where he lay, and spread it the next day on the roof ofthe cabin.
The gun trap was so successful that they baited it again andagain, securing three more cougars, until the animals became toowary to try for the bait. The fourth cougar did not sustain asevere wound and fled up the mountain side, but Dick tracked himby the trail of blood that he left, overtook him far up theslope, and slew him with single shot. All these skins were addedto their collection, and when the last was spread out to dry,Dick spoke of the plan that he had in mind.
"Al," he said, "these mountains, or at least this corner of them,seem to be left to us. The Sioux, I suppose, are on the warpathelsewhere, and they don't like mountains mu
Albert laughed from sheer delight.
"Dick," he said, "you won't have to get a gun and threaten mewith death unless I stay. I'll be glad to be a fur hunter, and,Dick, I tell you, I'm in love with this valley. As you say, it'smade me over again, and oh, it's fine to be well and strong, todo what you please, and not always to be thinking, 'how can Istand this? Will it hurt me?'"
"Then," said Dick, "it's settled. We'll not think for a longtime of getting back to civilization, but devote ourselves togathering up furs and skins."