Trapeze

“ The lacing of his shoes seemed to give the young trapeze performer some little concern. He did not want them too tight, and, on the other hand, they must not be loose enough to give any play to the ankles. For in a great measure the life of the young man who was soon to thrill the big audience with his daring depended on the firmness of his stand.
A fine figure of youthfulness was Joe Strong as he stood in his closely fitting red tights, tall and straight as an Indian arrow, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh, and yet not over-muscled. But the muscles he had were powerful. ”

“ And looking at it all was a vast throng of eager-eyed men, women and children. It was the opening performance of the circus.
"Good crowd all right," remarked Joe Strong, as he came back to the dressing tent from a preliminary survey of the audience. He took up one hole in the belt of his acrobatic suit of tights.
"Full house—is there?" asked a dark-complexioned, foreign-looking man, as he rubbed some rosin on the soles of his soft shoes, so they would not slip when he attempted some feat high up on a trapeze bar, or let himself down a rope head first, disdaining the use of his hands. ”

“ Travers says that the Patagonian Brothers live on their trapezes, and never come down to the ground except when a performance is going to begin. They hook their legs around it at night, and sleep hanging with their heads down, just like the bats, and they take their meals and study their lessons sitting on the bar, without anything to lean against. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Then the Trap-Door City, which covered the slopes above the plateau at the three-thousand-foot level like a checker-board of shimmering, silken circles, would spring to febrile life as the spider monsters went streaking and leaping across the barren, distorted granite on the day's business, the hunt for food in the lowlands, and the opening of the trap-doors to gather in the heat of the day in the silken tunnel homes set in the gorges and among the boulders. ”

“ Man-traps are laid under the pavements,--sometimes they are secretly introduced under your very table or bed,--and if anything is said against that piece of machinery called the main-spring, or against the head engineer, the trap will nab you and fly away with you, like the spider that carried off Margery Mopp. ”

“ On the bed reclined a figure, which, at sight of the light, sprang up with the cry of a hare in a trap—a man, unkempt, ragged, and dirty, bearing the impress of tramp written plainly upon his haggard, unshaven countenance. ”

“ French birds being too stupid to know what the traps were for, I never caught a feather. Now this osier bed was a favourite game covert for the sportsmen of the château; and what was my delight and astonishment when one morning I found a dead hare with its head under the fallen brick of my trap. How triumphantly I dragged it home, and showed it to Rose and Auguste,—who more than the rest had ‘mocked themselves’ of my traps, and then carried it in my arms, all bloody as it was (I could not make out how both its hind legs were broken) into the salon to show it to the old Marquise. ”

“ If the big cats had known how frightfully dangerous that trap was they'd have jumped overboard and left the island by swimming. I made two other traps something like it—the best contractor in New York wouldn't have undertaken to build one just like it at any price—and then it came around to be the seventh day, so to speak; and, like the six-day bicycle rider, I rested.
"Days," is only a fashion of speaking. ”

“ The trap, being fastened to the pole, resists all his efforts to drag it to the shore; the chain by which it is fastened defies his teeth; he struggles for a time, and at length sinks to the bottom and is drowned. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Travers, who answered him without looking up, without a modulation of tone or a play of feature, as if she had spoken from behind the veil of an immense indifference stretched between her and all men, between her heart and the meaning of events, between her eyes and the shallow sea which, like her gaze, appeared profound, forever stilled, and seemed, far off in the distance of a faint horizon, beyond the reach of eye, beyond the power of hand or voice, to lose itself in the sky. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Imagine coming upon a young fellow in a trap, with the usual flaming naphtha lamps, solemnly holding a boy whose head has a white kerchief over it, looking much like a small culprit prepared for the hangman, and the said young fellow, with great volubility, explaining some extraordinary and curious phenomenon which would happen, if sufficient attention were paid, but of which it is impossible to make head or tail. ”

“ Thou art like the trap that was set on a dunghill. The sparrow saw it and said, 'Brother, what dost thou here?' The trap answered, 'I am fasting and praying.' The sparrow said, 'And what is that piece of wood by thee?' The trap said, 'My staff upon which I lean when I pray.' 'And what is that in thy mouth?' 'It is a little food for hungry wayfarers.' Then said the sparrow, 'I am hungry and a wayfarer.' 'Come hither then,' said the trap, 'and fear nothing.' But when the sparrow came, the trap caught it by the head ”

“ There was a trap-door in the floor through which, I suppose, the hay was passed down to the horses under normal circumstances. One by one we crawled on all-fours to this trap-door and peered through. The scene below I can see to this day. As soon as one's eyes got a little accustomed to the gloom the outline of the stalls became first visible. Then a human figure seated on the top of an old refrigerator, with a pistol in one hand, pointed at a corner opposite, came into view. Then another man, seated astride the division between the stalls, could be seen. ”

“ In setting a trap, several things are to be observed with care:—first, that the trap is firmly fixed, and the proper distance from the bank—for if the beaver can get on shore with the trap, he will cut off his foot to escape: secondly, that the float is of dry wood, for should it not be, the little animal will cut it off at a stroke, and swimming with the trap to the middle of the dam, be drowned by its weight. ”

“ They were delighted at the chance, Will lugging his camera along, though the old trapper cast a dubious eye on the affair, as if he did not wholly like the idea of visiting his traps with such a "contraption," something unheard of in his experience.
"Now, don't even whisper, fellers. Here's the swamp and my traps begins clost by. I'll show ye all about it by signs. Dumb trappers is most successful, they sez," remarked Jesse, holding up his hand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Travers' shoulder. . . . Where was it he had seen her last—a long time before, on the other side of the world? There was also the glitter of splendour around her then, and an impression of luminous vastness. The encompassing night, too, was there, the night that waits for its time to move forward upon the glitter, the splendour, the men, the women. ”

“ Unless he is duck-shooting down there in the hidden slough where is a great "quack-quack" of young teals, the trapper may not uncase his gun. For a whole morning he lies idly in the sunlight beside some river where a roundish black head occasionally bobs up only to dive under when it sees the man. Or else he sits by the hour still as a statue on the mossy log of a swamp where a long wriggling—wriggling trail marks the snaky motion of some creature below the amber depths. ”

“ The scope of our volume not only embraces the arts of trapping and trap-making, but extends further into the subject of the wild life of a trapping campaign,—containing full directions for building log cabins, and shanties; boats and canoes; hints on food and cooking utensils; also full directions for the curing and tanning of fur skins,—in short, a complete repository of all useful information pertaining to the life and wants of a professional trapper. ”

“ I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west, the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her feet. ”

“ The hope of success, the fears of disappointment, the continual suspense and wonder which fill the mind of the young trapper, all combine to invest this sport with a charm known to no other. Trapping does not consist merely in the manufacture and setting of the various traps. ”

“ The dog stops barking, gives a whine and skulks to his master's feet, while the trapper becomes suddenly aware of low-crouching forms gliding through the underbrush. Eyes look out of the dark in the flash of green lights from a prism. ”

“ And so, our graceful woman-stream at Trèves ceases her girlhood and becomes more beautiful, more reflective, and more graceful; the hills draw near, and the vineyards sparkle among the rocks; her handmaidens, the brooks, wait at every turn to tend her, increasing her beauty; and following in her train, pass along in glorious procession, the trees bending and the rocks falling back before the might of innocence and love. ”

“ Noon—the Indian's hour of the short shadow—is the best time for the first visit, nightfall, the time of no shadow at all, for the second. If the trapper has no wooden door to his cabin, and in it—instead of caching in a tree—keeps fish or bacon that may attract marauding wolverine, he will very probably leave his dogs on guard while he makes the round of the snares. ”

“ A woman's heart may be said to resemble a subterranean cavern to which communication is had by means of a trap-door. How the lover enters this guarded precinct depends upon the lover and the woman. Sometimes the trap-door is jerked open, and he is hurled down with no by your leave, gobbled up, willing or unwilling. Sometimes there is a desperate fight just over the trap-door, in which he does sometimes, but not always, come off victor. ”

“ The wraps and shapeless garments worn so long were laid aside; the pretty hood which had, like charity, covered so many sins of omission, hidden, itself, at last, the soft wool stiffened with the sea spray, the bright colors dimmed by smoke, and soot, and burning sun. We crept shyly upon the deck in our unaccustomed finery, as though called at a moment's notice to play another [28] woman's part, half-learned. Not in us alone was the transformation. ”

“ He may be caught in one of his great steel-traps and perish on the prairie. He may run short of water and die of thirst on the desert. He may get his pack horses tangled up in a valley where there is no game and be reduced to the alternative of destroying what will carry him back to safety or starving with a horse still under him, before he can get over the mountains into another valley—but the true trapper will literally never lose himself. ”

“ Would we shake the drops from our garments, close our umbrellas, and go with him? We not only would, we did. We gathered a lunch, packed our trunk, said our adieus, and drove down to the station in the usual pouring rain, the tearful accompaniment to all our movements. But one party besides our own awaited the train upon the platform—a young man with the insignia of bliss in the gloves of startling whiteness upon his hands, and a middle-aged woman of seraphic expression of countenance, clad in robes of spotless white, her feet encased [69] in capacious white slippers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Men and women of the new age! Strange and incredible meeting! As the broad stream passed before him to the right, tributary gangways from the remote uplands of the hall thrust downward in an incessant replacement of people; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. ”