Chapter 6

The Peril of the Traps

AT breakfast next morning the Boy had quite recovered his good humour, and was making merry at Jabe's expense. The latter, who was, of course, defenceless and abashed, was anxious to give him something new to think of.

"Say," he exclaimed suddenly, after the Boy had prodded him with a searching jibe. "If ye'll let up on that snore, now, I'll take a day off from my cruisin', and show ye somethin' myself."

"Good!" said the Boy. "It's a bargain. What will you show me?"

"I'll take ye over to one of _my_ ponds, in next valley, an' show ye all the different ways of _trappin'_ beaver."

The Boy's face fell.

"But what do _I_ care about _trapping_ beaver?" he cried. "You know I wouldn't trap anything. If I had to kill anything, I'd _shoot_ it, and put it out of misery as quick as I could!"

"I know all that," responded Jabe. "But trappin' is somethin' ye want to _understand_, all the same. Ye can't be an all-round woodsman 'less ye _understand_ trappin'. An' moreover, there's some things ye learn about wild critters in tryin' to git the better of 'em that ye can't learn no other way."

"I guess you're right, Jabe!" answered the Boy, slowly. Knowledge he would have, whether he liked the means of getting it or not. But the woodsman's next words relieved him.

"I'll just show ye _how_, that's all!" said Jabe. "It's a leetle too airly in the season yit fur actual trappin'. An' moreover, it's agin the law. Agin the law, an' agin common sense, too, fer the fur ain't no good, so to speak, fer a month yit. When the law an' common sense stand together, then I'm fer the law. Come on!"

Picking up his axe, he struck straight back into the woods, in a direction at right angles to the brook. To uninitiated eyes there was no trail; but to Jabe, and to the Boy no less, the path was like a trodden highway. The pace set by the backwoodsman, with his long, slouching, loose-jointed, flat-footed stride, was a stiff one, but the Boy, who was lean and hard, and used his feet straight-toed like an Indian, had no fault to find with it. Neither spoke a word, as they swung along single file through the high-arched and ancient forest, whose shadows, so sombre all through summer, were now shot here and there with sharp flashes of scarlet or pale gleams of aërial gold. Once, rounding a great rock of white granite stained with faint pinkish and yellowish reflections from the bright leaves glowing over it, they came face to face with a tall bull moose, black and formidable-looking as some antediluvian monster. The monster, however, had no desire to hold the way against them. He eyed them doubtfully for a second, and then went crashing off through the brush in frank, undignified alarm.

For a good three miles the travellers swung onward, up a slow long slope, and down a longer, slower one into the next valley. The Boy noted that the region was one of numberless small brooks flowing through a comparatively level land, with old, long-deserted beaver-meadows interspersed among wooded knolls. Yet for a time there were no signs of the actual living beavers. He asked the reason, and Jabe said:

"It's been all trapped over an' over, years back, when beaver pelts was high,--an' by Injuns, likely, who just cleaned out everythin',--an' broke down the dams,--an' dug out the houses. But the little critters is comin' back. Furder up the valley there's some good ponds now!"

"And now they'll be cleaned out again!" exclaimed the Boy, with a rush of indignant pity.

"Not on yer life!" answered Jabe. "We don't do things that way now. We don't play low-down tricks on 'em an' clean out a whole family, but jest take so many out of each beaver house, an' then leave 'em alone two er three years to kinder recooperate!"

As Jabe finished they came in sight of a long, rather low dam, with a pond spread out beyond it that was almost worthy to be called a lake. It was of comparatively recent creation, as the Boy's observant eye decided at once from the dead trees still rising here and there from the water.

"Gee!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "That's a great pond, Jabe!"

"There's no less'n four beaver houses in that pond!" said the woodsman, with an air of proud possession. "That makes, accordin' to my reckonin', anywheres from thirty to thirty-six beaver. Bye and bye, when the time comes, I'll kinder thin 'em out a bit, that's all!"

From the crest of the dam all four houses--one far out and three close to shore--were visible to the Boy's initiated eye; though strangers might have taken them to be mere casual accumulations of sticks deposited by some whimsical freshet. It troubled him to think how many of the architects of these cunningly devised dwellings would soon have to yield up their harmless and interesting lives; but he felt no mission to attempt a reform of humanity's taste for furs, so he did not allow himself to become sentimental on the subject. Beavers, like men, must take fate as it comes; and he turned an attentive ear to Jabe's lesson.

"Ye know, of course," said the woodsman, "the steel trap we use. We ain't got no use fer the tricks of the Injuns, though I'm goin' to tell ye all _them_, in good time. An' we ain't much on new-fangled notions, neether. But the old, smooth-jawed steel-trap, what kin _hold_ when it gits a grip, an' not tear the fur, is good enough for us."

"Yes, I know all your traps, of all the sizes you use, from muskrat up to bear!" interrupted the Boy. "What size do you use for the beaver?"

"Number four," answered Jabe. "Jaw's got a spread of six and one-half inches or thereabouts. But it's all in the where an' the how ye set yer trap!"

"And that's what I want to know about!" said the Boy. "But why don't you _shoot_ the poor little beggars? That's quicker for both, and just as easy for you, ain't it?"

"T'ain't no use _shootin'_ a beaver, leastways not in the water! He just sinks like a stone. No, ye've _got_ to trap him, to _git_ him. Now, supposin' you was goin' to trap, where would ye set the traps?"

"I'd anchor them just in the entrances to their houses," answered the Boy promptly. "Or along their canals, when they've got canals. Or round their brush piles an' storage heaps. And when I found a tree they'd just partly cut down, I'd set a couple of traps, covered up in leaves, each side of the trunk, where they'd have to step on the pan when they stood up to gnaw."

"Good for you!" said Jabe, with cordial approbation. "Ye'd make a first-class trapper, 'cause ye've got the right notion. Every one of them things is done, one time or another, by the old trapper. But here's one or two wrinkles more killin' yet. An' moreover, if ye trap a beaver on land ye're like to lose him one way or another. He's got so much _purchase_, on land, with things to git hold on to; he's jest as like as not to twist his leg clean off, an' git away. If it's one of his fore legs, which is small an' slight, ye know, he's most sure to twist it off. An' sometimes he'll do the trick even with a hind leg. I've caught lots of beaver as had lost a fore leg, an' didn't seem none the worse. The fur'd growed over it, an' they was slick an' hearty. An' I've caught them as had lost a hind leg, an' they was in good condition. A beaver'll stand a lot, I tell you. But then, supposin' you git yer beaver, caught so fast he ain't no chance whatever to git clear. Then, like as not, some lynx, or wildcat, or fisher, or fox, or even maybe a bear, 'll come along an' help himself to Mr. Beaver without so much as a by yer leave. No, ye want to git him in the water; an' as he's just as anxious to git thar as you are to git him thar, that suits all parties to a T."

"Good!" said the Boy,--not that it really seemed to him good, but to show that he was attending.

"But," continued Jabe, "what would ye say would most upset the beaver and make 'em careless?"

The Boy thought for a moment.

"Breaking their dam!" he answered tentatively.

"_Eg_zactly!" answered the woodsman. "Well, now, to ketch beaver sure, make two or three breaks in their dam, an' set the traps jest a leetle ways above the break, on the upper slope, where they're sure to step into 'em when hustlin' round to mend the damage. That gits 'em, every time. Ye chain each trap to a stake, driven into three or four foot of water; an' ye drive another stake about a foot an' a half away from the first. When the beaver finds himself caught, he dives straight for deep water,--his way of gittin' clear of most of his troubles. But this time he finds it don't work. The trap keeps a holt, bitin' hard. An' in his struggle he gits the chain all tangled up 'round the two stakes, an' drowns himself. There you have him safe, where no lynx nor fox kin git at him."

"Then, when one of them dies so dreadfully, right there before their eyes," said the Boy, "I suppose the others skin out and let the broken dam go! They must be scared to death themselves!"

"Not on yer life, they don't!" responded Jabe. "The dam's the thing they care about. They jest keep on hustlin' round; an' they mend up that dam if it takes half the beaver in the pond to do it. Oh, they're grit, all right, when it comes to standin' by the dam."

"Hardly seems fair to take them that way, does it?" mused the Boy sympathetically.

"It's a good way," asserted Jabe positively, "quick an' sure! Then, in winter there's another good an' sure way,--where ye don't want to clean out the whole house, which is killin' the goose what lays the golden egg, like the Injuns does! Ye cut a hole in the ice, near the bank. Then ye git a good, big, green sapling of birch or willow, run the little end 'way out into the pond under the ice, an' ram the big end, sharpened, deep into the mud of the bank, so the beaver can't pull it out. Right under this end you set yer trap. Swimmin' round under the ice, beaver comes across this fresh-cut sapling an' thinks as how he's got a good thing. He set right to work to gnaw it off, close to the bank, to take it back to the house an' please the family. First thing, he steps right into the trap. An' that's the end of him. But other beaver'll come along an' take the sapling, all the same!"

"You spoke of the ways the Indians had, of cleaning out the whole family," suggested the Boy, when Jabe had come to a long pause, either because he was tired of talking or because he had no more to say.

"Yes, the Injuns' methods was complete. They seemed to have the idee there'd always be beaver a-plenty, no matter how many they killed. One way they had was to mark down the bank holes, the burrows, an' then break open the houses. This, ye must understand, 's in the winter, when there's ice all over the pond. When they're drove from their houses, in the winter, they take straight to their burrows in the bank, where they kin be sure of gittin' their heads above water to breathe. Then, the Injuns jest drive stakes down in front of the holes,--an' there they have 'em, every one. They digs down into the burrows, an' knocks Mr. Beaver an' all the family on the head."

"Simple and expeditious!" remarked the Boy, with sarcastic approval.

"But the nestest job the Injuns makes," continued Jabe, "is by gittin' at the brush pile. Ye know, the beaver keeps his winter supply of grub in a pile,--a pile of green poles an' saplings an' branches,--a leetle ways off from the house. The Injun finds this pile, under the ice. Then, cuttin' holes through the ice, he drives down a stake fence all 'round it, so close nary a beaver kin git through. Then he pulls up a stake, on the side next the beaver house, an' sticks down a bit of a sliver in its place. Now ye kin guess what happens. In the house, over beyant, the beavers gits hungry. One on 'em goes to git a stick from the pile an' bring it inter the house. He finds the pile all fenced off. But a stick he must have. Where the sliver is, that's the only place he kin git through. Injun, waitin' on the ice, sees the sliver move, an' knows Mr. Beaver's gone in. He claps the stake down agin, in place of the sliver. An' then, of course, there's nawthin' left fer Mr. Beaver to do but drown. He drowns jest at the place where he come in an' couldn't git out agin. That seems to knock him out, like, an' he jest gives up right there. Injun fishes him out, dead, puts the sliver back, an' waits for another beaver. He don't have to wait long--an' nine times outer ten he gits 'em all. Ye see, they _must_ git to the brush pile!"

"I'm glad _you_ don't trap them that way, Jabe!" said the Boy. "But tell me, why did you bring me away out here to _this_ pond, to tell me all this, when you could have done it just as well at _my_ pond?"

"I jest wanted the excuse," answered Jabe, "fer takin' a day off from cruisin'. Now, come on, an' I'll show ye some more likely ponds."