George Bird Grinnell

“ Out here we call them meat hawks and camp robbers. They're so cheeky that I always rather liked them, but they're a mean bird in winter, especially if a man is trapping marten; they will spring his traps, steal his bait, and maybe tear his pelts, but they are nowhere near as bad as the magpies, or even as the blue jays. It always amuses me to see how, after they have eaten what they want to, they will pack off all the food they can get and cache it in the trees, in the crevices in the bark, and in the moss that grows on the limbs. They are great fellows to hide things. ”

“ On either side of the trail they were following the mountains were rough, and weathered pillars of granite stood out bare among the ancient cedars on the hillside.
They camped in the beautiful valley of the North Platte on the edge of a splendid level meadow covered with fine grass, on which in the evening and again next morning Jack saw from three to four hundred antelope at a time. There were also ducks, rabbits, sage hens, and blue grouse; abundant food, Jack thought, for any hunters who are satisfied with enough. ”

“ He was just about to get on his horse and ride up to the top of the bluff to see whether he could see anything of Hugh, when down in the valley below him he heard a sound of breaking sticks and crushing undergrowth, and a moment later, to his amazement, a little bunch of buffalo broke out of the willows, raced across the valley, plunged into the stream, crossed it, and, with the activity of cats climbed the bluffs and disappeared. ”

“ Flocks of tiny shore birds tripped lightly over the soft mud of the banks, and brown and black long-billed curlews stalked over the grassy prairie. Many of these birds were evidently breeding, and displayed great anxiety when the visitors approached their nests. The curlews especially were demonstrative, and flew about close above the men's heads, uttering loud, shrill cries.
On a little knoll near one of the lakes, Hugh and Jack sat down and adjusted the glasses to study the birds that were floating on the water. ”

“ If a man has a beaver for his dream, he is pretty likely to be lucky in everything that he undertakes."
"All the animals seem to have been very important to the Indians," said Jack. "They didn't exactly worship them, but they believe that they had great power to help."
"Yes," agreed Hugh, "that is true, of course. The Indians pray to the spirits of the animals, and to the spirits of the mountains and rocks and trees, and ask them to help them, but the way I understand it, they don't worship any of these things. ”

“ If it should happen that we should get to any place where wolves are plenty we can set two or three traps for them, but I don't want to do that until we have tried beaver trapping, because I am afraid we will lose some of our traps."
"I had no idea, Hugh," said Jack, "that wolves were so cunning and so powerful."
"Yes," said Hugh, "they are strong animals, and when they have grown old they are pretty smart. They are mighty tough, too. Haven't I ever told you about that wolf that Billy Collins killed three or four years ago at the ranch?" ”

“ As they rode back to camp, Hugh said to Jack, "I'm beginning to feel sorry for you already, son, for you're liable to have a day of pretty hard work to-morrow. If we should get eight beaver, I reckon you'd think you had your hands full. Besides that, I'm beginning to feel a little touch of rheumatism in my right arm, and I don't know whether I'll be able to use a knife to-morrow or not. This wading around in the water, even in rubber boots, isn't good for a man as old as I am." ”

“ On the prairie, of course, lots of fires are started by the railroad. The sparks from the locomotive fall among dry grass. Sometimes in the timber lightning starts a fire. There are lots of ways in which the forests can be burned, and as long as there's so much forest, and it's nobody's business to look after it, of course, these fires will keep burning year after year."
"Well now, son," said Hugh, "after they had finished eating, if you'll get another bucket of water I'll wash the dishes, and then we can stretch that bear hide." ”

“ CHAPTER XI INDIAN BEAVER LORE
The two ate their supper that night with the eagerness of hungry and tired men. Jack thought that the term "wolfish," that Hugh sometimes used to express hunger, had a good deal of meaning. He was so greedy over his food that when the first helping was put on his plate he began to bolt it, as he said to Hugh, "like a hungry dog."
"Better eat slowly," said Hugh. "You'll get a good deal more comfort out of your food and it will do you a whole lot more good. As a rule the hungrier you are the slower you ought to eat. ”

“ Sure enough, they found a well-traveled and dry game trail which showed that last autumn it had been traveled by bands of elk, for the bark was rubbed off the willows as high as Hugh's head, where great horns of the bulls had forced the stems of the brush apart on either side of the trail. The way led just in the direction they wanted to go, that is, across the valley, and ten or fifteen minutes' brisk tramping brought them to the edge of a green, grassy meadow of considerable extent. ”

“ Jack noticed that Hugh had stuck in his belt half a dozen straight willow twigs from a foot and a half to three feet long and about as large around as a lead pencil.
"Now, the first thing you want to remember, son, is that you mustn't leave any sign or any scent for the beaver to notice. They're smart animals, and if they see anything unusual, or if they smell anything strange, it puts them on their guard and you're not likely to have them go to your traps. Of course, here it's a little different because these beaver seem so tame, but you may as well try to begin right." ”

“ It would put out the fire on the mountains and cleanse the air of the smoke."
"Yes," replied Jack, "I wish it would rain. I hate to see all that timber burning. It will take a long time for the mountains to become green again."
"Yes," said Hugh, "many and many a year; and sometimes, of course, after the fire has gone over the hills like that they never again are covered with timber. I have seen mountains way down in the south-west that at one time must have been covered with splendid great trees, and then had been burned over and no trees ever grew there again. ”

“ In some places the fire had run down the mountains out onto the plain, burning the sage brush and sometimes even crossing the creek bottom, killing the willows which everywhere grew very thickly. In one place, as Jack was riding down the bluffs into the brush, a large bob-cat or bay lynx ran out from the bushes, stopped and stared at him when it saw him, but before he could draw his rifle from the scabbard it bounded back into the willows and was not seen again. ”

“ Among the red hills Jack had several times been hunting deer and elk, and just beyond the chalky bluff was Bate's Hole, where Jack had killed his first mule deer.
It was but a little after noon when Hugh stopped his horse, and when Jack had come close to him, said, "Son, there are some antelope over this next hill, and we need fresh meat; why not slip off your horse and go up to the top of the next hill and see if you can find a buck that you can kill." ”

“ I don't go quite as far as that, but I do know that if there were a hard breeze blowing I'd always get to the leeward of the trap and of all the things I left near the trapping ground."
"Well," said Jack, "I wondered as I saw you setting those traps to see how awful careful you were about everything you did."
"Well," said Hugh, "I suppose that's habit, but it's necessary. You take a man that is careless, and that leaves sign about everywhere, and you'll find that he never catches any fur. I have been out with men of that kind, and they were always poor trappers." ”

“ Besides that, a wolf is a powerful, strong animal, and he can pack off a trap with him just as if he weren't carrying anything at all. Then, too, on the prairie there is usually nothing to fasten a trap to, and unless you carry a lot of iron picket pins with you, you lose your traps about as fast as you can set them."
"You have told me all about poisoning wolves, Hugh," said Jack, "but you never said anything about trapping, and I don't understand how you fix the bait in a trap. ”

“ A few years later the white man began to penetrate this wilderness. Beaver were growing scarcer, and men were forced to go further for them. So the trapper entered these unknown fastnesses and began his work. He followed up stream after stream, sought out remote valleys, crossed deserts. With rifle in one hand and trap in the other, he endured every hardship and exposed himself to every danger. He swam rivers, climbed mountains, fought Indians, and risked life in his struggle for fur. ”

“ The next hour and a half was spent in skinning the bear, and long before this operation was finished, Hugh and Jack were tired and more or less covered with grease.
"This will be good practice, son, if we get any beaver," said Hugh. "You see, in skinning a beaver you've got to work just as you do on this bear. You can't do any stripping; every inch of hide you take off has got to be cut free from the fat that lies under it, and as you see, that's a mighty long, slow business." ”

“ If the sun shines all day on this fat it will more than half cook it, and that will spoil the hide."
Hugh and Jack went down to the stream, and cutting a lot of the green-leafed willows, brought them up and so arranged them that the direct rays of the sun were kept from the hide.
"Never dry a hide in the sun," said Hugh; "always in the shade. Let the wind and the dryness in the air take up the moisture for you. Then your hides will always sell well." ”

“ I am a fool not to have brought two or three good books out with me into this country. A man has lots of time when he might read, and instead of that I always lie down and go to sleep. I'm going to try and read a lot of this book before our trip is over."
That afternoon Jack read for an hour in his book, and then proposed to Hugh, who was working over one of the newly stretched beaver skins, that they should take their rifles and walk up the creek for an hour. "I don't mean to hunt," said Jack, "but just to see how the trail is." ”

“ An old beaver meadow is a mighty mean place to take horses. There are bogs and beaver sloughs and old abandoned beaver holes, and it's easy for a horse to fall down, and sometimes mighty hard to get him up again."
Hugh and Jack donned their rubber boots, and taking their rifles, started down toward the main stream. The meadow here was miles in width and it was quite uncertain how far they could go. As well as they could see, much of the meadow was overgrown with tall willows, but on the other hand, there seemed to be many open, grassy meadows. ”

“ They kill the geese spring and fall, as they are passing back and forth, and so many of them that they store them up for the winter and summer food."
"My," said Jack, "what a place that would be to go shooting in!"
"Don't fool yourself, son. When you kill game regularly for the food it yields, it stops being fun to hunt and it becomes real work. I know it's so because I've done it."
"To-morrow morning," added Hugh, "unless I miss my guess, you'll see the biggest beaver meadow you ever saw, and we'll get to it toward night. ”

“ I think some of the books say that the beaver can cut down a tree so that it will fall exactly where they want it to lie, just as a lumber-man in the woods will fell a tree where he wants it to lie. They say that when the beaver want to build a new dam they look along the stream until they find a place where there is a tree of just the right length, and then they fell it across the stream for a foundation for their dam. ”

“ You'd have to have bear traps to catch him, and it's no joke to set a bear trap. You say all they know about him is that they found his bones?"
"That's all," said Jack. "Uncle George showed me a picture of a skull once, and I remember that it was longer than a wolf's skull, and it had two great big gnawing teeth reaching down from the front of the jaw."
"Powerful strange things there used to be on this earth a long time ago," said Hugh, in a meditative tone. ”

“ Sturgis.
"And I suppose," said Jack, "if we are going off, the sooner we get started the better. Isn't that so, Hugh?"
"I reckon it is, son; and if we're going to try to get any fur of any kind, the sooner we start the better the fur will be. It won't be long now before the animals begin to shed. Of course, a bear hide is good till well into June, and the higher up the animal lives, the longer the coat stays good. Why, in old times, we used to trap all through the summer, but, of course, if we caught fur low down on the prairie it did not bring us the price that prime pelts brought." ”

“ I expect that it is the doubt [Pg 150] in hunting, the uncertainty whether you are going to get a shot or not, that makes hunting interesting."
"I reckon that's it," said Hugh. "It's the gamble that there is in it; the chance that there is about it, that makes men like it. But say, son," he continued, "before we forget it I want to tell you something about these little rail birds. You know they've got mighty short wings and it seems hard for them to fly. Now what do you think the Indians up north say about these birds?"
"I am sure I don't know, Hugh; what is it?" asked Jack. ”

“ There were seen the roots of the long hairs sticking up through a sort of fur or down, such as may be seen next to the skin of an elk or a deer when it is shedding its winter coat.
"There," said Hugh, "do you see that fur that grows next to the skin? Most animals in this cold climate develop that during the winter, and you can see that it's almost like the fur on the otter, the beaver, or the muskrat. It must keep out the cold in great shape." ”

“ It took him a long time to get rid of the mud that he had picked up in his journey, but at last he got dressed and kept on around the pond. As he reached a point close to the bluffs where he could see the whole width of the pond, he was astonished to see the great number of birds that were living on it. A few of them were ducks, but the most were smaller birds, coots, grebes, phalaropes, and sandpipers. All of them seemed to be in companies, and Jack concluded that the birds that he could see were probably the males, whose mates were scattered about near at hand, sitting on their nests. ”

“ After he had looked, he returned to where Jack had already split his beaver, and said, "Well, son, the bears have been down at our meat below, and I reckon that instead of going down the creek to teach the boy how to shoot, two or three of us will have to stay here and build that trap."
"It will be quite a job, won't it, Hugh?" said Jack. "A lot of trees will have to be cut and hauled and put up. We're in better shape now to do it than we would have been before these strangers came, but still, it's going to be quite a lot of work, isn't it?" ”