Il Trovatore

“ The new white gloves safely came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome fan—applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten—saw me close my eyes. She thought it was the pain of my ankle, but it was a sudden memory of Cora and the mad-scene. As the whirlwind of applause roared about me, I sickened with a mortal terror of the ordeal awaiting me. ”

“ He had a fine baritone voice, and while in Italy he began singing small parts in opera. In 1857 he returned to London, and on 16th November made his first appearance in the part of Adam in The Creation at St Martin's Hall. In 1858, after appearing in January in The Creation, he sang the title-part in Elijah in March, both at Exeter Hall. In 1859 he sang at Covent Garden as Hoel in the opera Dinorah, and in 1862 he appeared in Italian opera in Il Trovatore. ”

“ Saying which, the old man thrust his hand under one end of the division, and pulled out a bundle loosely tied with a string, which became unfastened as the Trapper lifted the roll from its place in the box, and, as he shook it open, and held its contents at arm's length up to the light, the startled eyes of Wild Bill, and the earnest gaze of the Trapper, beheld a woman's dress! ”

“ Ay, ay, poor woman, we join thee in thy prayer. God bless the dear old man! and not only him, but all who do the deeds he did. God bless them one and all!
Over the crusted snow the Trapper held his course, until he came, with a happy heart, to his cabin. Soon a fire was burning on his own hearthstone, and the hounds were in their accustomed place. He drew the table in front, where the fire's fine light fell on his work, and, taking some green vines and branches from the basket, began to twine a wreath. ”

“ The strong, hardy, bronzed trapper, powerful in all that goes to make up the physical man, looked upon the pale, sweet-faced boy, with his misshapen body, as an affectionate father would look upon an afflicted child.
On the other hand, the brusque, outspoken manner of the hunter pleased the appreciative mind of the boy, who saw much to admire, both in his appearance and manner. ”

“ The men who had followed Edward Forrester in his last expedition scattered, and the time has nearly passed when the two great companies strive for the possession of the trapping-grounds. But often by the trapper’s fire some gray-haired man will tell the tale of the old days when he took sides in this strange struggle. ”

“ The Indian trapper must be far afield before mid-day. Then the sun casts no man-shadow to scare game from his snares. Black is the flag of betrayal in northern midwinter. It is by the big liquid eye, glistening on the snow like a black marble, that the trapper detects the white hare; and a jet tail-tip streaking over the white wastes in dots and dashes tells him the little ermine, whose coat must line some emperor's coronation robe, is alternately scudding over the drifts and diving below the snow with the forward wriggling of a snake under cover. ”

“ The peltries we bring will ensure us a welcome; and though I trust not to the white men who live in cities, the chief factor there calls me his friend, and has a heart which I doubt not will feel compassion for your youth. He will treat you kindly for my sake, though most of the traders such as he care little for the old trapper who has spent his whole life in toiling for them. ”

“ When the birds have gone south the silence of a winter forest on a windless day becomes tense enough to be snapped by either a man's breathing or the breaking of a small twig; and the trapper acquires a habit of moving through the brush with noiseless stealth. He must learn to see better than the caribou can hear or the wolf smell—which means that in keenness and accuracy his sight outdistances the average field-glass. Besides, the trapper has learned how to look, how to see, and seeing—discern; which the average man cannot do even through a field-glass. ”

“ Usually the busy city man has spent nine or ten of the most precious years of his youth in study and travel to learn other men's thoughts for his own life's work. The trapper spends an idle month or two of each year wandering through a wild world learning the technic of his craft at first hand. And the trapper's learning is all done leisurely, calmly, without bluster or drive, just as nature herself carries on the work of her realm. ”

“ Perhaps he has a circle of thirty traps. Of that number he hardly expects game in more than a dozen. If six have a prize, he has done well. Each time he stops to examine a trap he must pause to cover all trace of the man-smell, daubing his own tracks with castoreum, or pomatum, or bears' grease; sweeping the snow over every spot touched by his hand; dragging the flesh side of a fresh pelt across his own trail.
Mid-day comes, the time of the short shadow; and the Indian trapper has found not a thing in his traps. He only knows that some daring enemy has dogged the circle of his snares. ”

“ If the tracks are like the prints of a baby's fingers, close and small, the trapper hopes to capture a pelt fit for a throne cloak, the skin for which the Louis of France used to pay, in modern money, from a hundred dollars to a hundred and fifty dollars. The full-grown ermines will be worth only some few "beaver" at the fort. Perfect fur would be marred by the twine snare, so the trapper devises as cunning a death for the ermine as the ermine devises when it darts up through the snow with its spear-teeth clutched in the throat of a poor rabbit. ”

“ Louis a second time, met Lisa coming up the Missouri with a brigade of [Pg 167] hunters, and for the third time turned his face to the wilderness? Had he not wandered with the Crows, fought the Blackfeet, gone down to St. Louis, and been impelled by that strange impulse of adventure which was to the hunter what the instinct of migration is to bird and fish and buffalo and all wild things—to go yet again to the wilderness? Such was the passion for the wilds that ruled the life of all free trappers.
The free trappers formed a class by themselves. ”

“ Looking out on the life of the wilds clear-visioned as his mountain air, the trapper sees a world beautiful as a dream but cruel as death. He sees a world where to be weak, to be stupid, to be dull, to be slow, to be simple, to be rash are the unpardonable crimes; where the weak must grow strong, keen of eye and ear and instinct, sharp, wary, swift, wise, and cautious; where in a word the weak must grow fit to survive or—perish! ”

“ The terror that spurred the emaciated man to drag himself all this weary distance can barely be conceived; but such were the fearful odds taken by every free trapper who went up the Platte, across the parched plains, or to the head waters of the Missouri. ”

“ A dog usually bays the 'coon out of hiding in the East. Tiny tracks, like a child's hand, tell the Northern hunter where to set his traps.
Wahboos the rabbit, musquash the musk-rat, sikak the skunk, wenusk the badger, and the common 'coon—these are the little chaps whose hunt fills the idle days of the trapper's busy life. At night, before the rough stone hearth which he has built in his cabin, he is still busy by fire-light preparing their pelts. Each skin must be stretched and cured. Turning the skin fur side in, the trapper pushes into the pelt a wedge-shaped slab of spliced cedar. ”

“ Well, Travers, if you are in your right wits, and know what you are talking of, this is the news that will presently make me well again."
"Did I say that we had fallen in with any of our ships?" answered Travers. "But I tell you now, in plain English, that by the prudence and courage of your brave boy, your ship is your own again: we are all free; the Frenchmen are in irons; and we have tacked about for Old England, instead of being carried into Dunkirk."
"And Arthur, you say, has done all this; but how?—You are not given to tell lies, Jack Travers,—and yet I can hardly believe it." ”

“ The free trappers are a more independent class; and in describing them, we shall do little more than transcribe the graphic description of them by Captain Bonneville. "They come and go," says he, "when and where they please; provide their own horses, arms, and other equipments; trap and trade on their own account, and dispose of their skins and peltries to the highest bidder. Sometimes, in a dangerous hunting ground, they attach themselves to the camp of some trader for protection. ”

“ I neither know nor care if the man I'm seeking is a Free Trapper, or whether he just came down from the mountains. I know I'm a dead shot and I know I'll shoot him dead. When you find a corpse lying on the broad of its back with its left eye shot out you may calculate that my mission is accomplished and that I'm done with this region. ”

“ Speckled Beauty stood on the edge of the shore as they pushed off, and gave utterance to a whine or rather growl like the mastiff, who is begging his master to take him along. The trapper replied in a language which, if not understood by Harry Northend, seemed to be comprehended by the brute—who instantly began following them down-stream, until he was hid by the intervening gloom. ”

“ Finally there seemed to be no more for either to say, and the Blackfoot rose, shook the hand of the trapper, in token of amity, and then speaking to his warriors, they too arose, and the three moved off in the gloom and were seen no more.
The fire had burned very low, the two speakers paying no heed to it in the earnestness of their conversation. The old hunter cast on a few more sticks, and then rising and yawning he looked off at the sky. ”

“ I thank you; we hunters are hardly in a condition to appear in the presence of refined ladies, as I judge Miss Brandon to be, and our lives are such that we should cut a sorry figure, if we attempted to do so.”
“But you talk like one who has not always led a hunter’s life.”
“I have some education, but at present, I am simply a hunter and trapper.”
Florence Brandon! Little did Mr. Templeton dream of the strange emotions awakened in the breast of Fred Wainwright, the young hunter, at the mention of that name. ”

“ All I know is, he is in your possession now."
"And what if he is?"
"Why, naturally a man likes to have what is his own, doesn't he? Suppose a man steals your horse; you find him after a while in my stable; is he your horse, or mine?"
"But how do I know but this is a conspyracy to cheat me out of a hoss?" retorted Peakslow, looking again at the handbill, with a terrible frown. "It may have all been cut and dried aforehand. You've your trap sot, and, soon as ever the animal is in my hands, ye spring it. How do I know the hoss is yourn, even if ye have got a description of him? ”

“ When you stepped in atween the Apache and her, all so sassy and bold, I could see plain enough she rather liked your way of doing things. I think everything is plain sailing for you.”
There was a vast deal of comfort in the words of the honest hearted trapper, and the young hunter reflected upon them many a time through the day. They stirred old emotions in his breast, and nothing that could have been said by any one—always excepting the fair 69 Florence herself—could have been more prized or imparted a greater degree of pleasure. ”

“ He never does or says any thing like other folks. Jonas," continued the hunter, turning to the odd genius of whom he was speaking, "you are a good trapper, but I fear you make a bad fore-runner."
"Well, I am all right now here in the rear, I suppose," replied the other, with an oddly assumed air of abashment. "A man is generally good for one thing or t'other. If I ain't a good forerunner, it then follows that I am a good hind-runner."
"You see he must have his fol-de-rol, Mr. Elwood," said the hunter. ”

“ Traffick entertained some grand ideas as to the house of Travers and Treason. Why should not he become a member, and ultimately the leading member, of that firm? Sir Thomas was not a young man, though he was strong and hearty. Tom had hitherto succeeded only in making an ass of himself. As far as transacting the affairs of the firm, Tom,—so thought Mr. Traffick,—was altogether out of the question. He might perish in those extensive travels which he was about to take. Mr. Traffick did not desire any such catastrophe;—but the young man might perish. ”

“ You are mistaken, friend, in calling me a hunter; I am nothing better than a trapper." [2]
"If you ar' much of the one, I'm bold to say you ar' something of the other; for the two callings, go mainly together, in these districts."
"To the shame of the man who is able to follow the first be it so said!" returned the trapper, whom in future we shall choose to designate by his pursuit; "for more than fifty years did I carry my rifle in the wilderness, without so much as setting a snare for even a bird that flies the heavens;—much less, a beast that has nothing but legs, for its gifts." ”

“ All at once there were a number of young men—at the horse's head, at the back and sides of the trap, at the first doorway, and the second, and beyond—each presenting such a smooth-faced, pallid, brown-clad replica of all the others that Thorpe knew he should never be able to tell them apart. ”

“ For you're nigh a foot taller than I be, and your shoulders are as broad as the sled."
"Yer p'ints be well taken, fur sartin," replied the Trapper; "fur it be no more than reasonable that the man that steers should see where he be goin', and I am anxious as ye be that ye should. Yis, I sartinly want ye to see where ye be goin' on this trip, anyhow, fur the crew be a fresh un, and the channel be a leetle crooked. But be ye sartin, Bill, that ye can fetch round that stump there as it orter be did, with nothin' but yer toe out behind? ”