CHAPTER XXI.
THE CARE OF BLISTERED FEET.
Much suffering and discomfort are experienced by the novice on snowshoe tramps by the want of knowledge as to how to care for and protect the feet from blistering.
The toes are the parts that suffer most from the friction of the cross snowshoe strings that are continually see-sawing the front part of the moccasin, and many, from an erroneous idea of cause and effect, pile on extra socks, thinking thereby to prevent the blistering by the thickness of their foot padding.
During my first years in the Hudson Bay service I suffered like any other new "hitter" of the long trail, but once started on the tramp there was no giving in. Places being hundreds of miles apart, there were no houses nor any place to stop and say, "I can go no further." On a journey of seven, eight or ten days, we took probably one day's extra provisions, but no more, therefore be the back lame through the heavy bundle it had to support day after day, or our every toe blistered to the bone, walk on we must and did. I have often seen the blood appear on my moccasins, working its way through three or four pairs of socks and become so dried and caked that before the shoes could be removed at the night's camp-fire, warm water had to be poured freely upon the moccasin to release the foot.
The agony at such times was past explaining. It was quite a work to patch up each separate toe with balsam gum and rag before turning in for the night, and yet stiff, swollen and sore, these poor feet had to have the large heavy snowshoes suspended to them next morning and the weary tramp continued as on the previous day.
Our guides, the Indians, did not suffer, as their feet were hardened from childhood, and as an Indian never gives advice nor offers to relieve his companion's load without being asked, we, the unfortunate greenhorns, were compelled to trudge on in the wake of our pace-maker as well as we could.
Of course I tried by all manner of changes in footwear to alleviate the trouble by taking off some thickness of socks and by putting on extra ones, all to no avail. Trip after trip, and year after year, I suffered with cut toes and blistered feet. By good fortune, I think it was my fifth year in the country, I was ordered from St. Lawrence posts to meet a winter packet party from Hudson's Bay. A certain lake on the divide was arranged for in the autumn as the meeting place of the two parties. The packeters from Hudson's Bay were to leave on the 3d of January and had a journey ahead of them of 325 miles. My party, two Indians and self, left on the 6th of January, having 55 miles less to travel, or 270 miles. Our day's tramps were so similar in length that we arrived at the rendezvous within four hours of each other.
One of the party from the bay was a Scotch half-breed, and from him, for the first time, I learned the art of caring properly for the feet. He made me cast aside all my woolen knitted socks, and out of his abundance he supplied me with smoked fawn-skin socks, ankle high, made in the fashion of a moccasin, only with no tops or welts of seams. The top and bottom pieces of leather were herring-boned together, a slit was made in the top half to insert the foot and this was put on the bare foot. On top of this two other shoe socks, made of duffle or blanketing, were placed and the moose skin moccasin over all, the leather top of which was tied about the naked ankle.
I ventured to opine that I would possibly be cold there, or freeze, but my new friend told me the object was to keep the feet from over heating. "And this and the knitted socks is the cause of all your suffering."
"Now listen to me," he went on; "at every noon day fire, or in fact any time a lengthened halt is called, sit on the brush before the fire and take off both moccasins and all your socks, turn them inside out and beat them on a stick or the brush to take out all the creases the feet have made. Let them cool wrong side out and while this is taking place, have your feet also cooling. Let them become thoroughly cold before replacing your socks and shoes and when doing this put those that were on the right foot on to the left, and vice versa. This affords a wonderful relief to the tired feet and you resume the journey with a rested feeling. At night, after the last pipe is smoked and you are about turning in to get what sleep you can with no roof to cover you but the far-off heavens, then turn up your pants to the knee and jump, bare-footed and bare-legged into the nearby snow and stand in it until you can bear it no longer, then stand near the blazing camp-fire and with a coarse towel, or bag, rub the legs and feet well until the blood is tingling, and the color of your lower extremities resembles a boiled lobster, and my word for it, you will rest better, sleep sounder and arise refreshed — what you never enjoyed before."
Fitted out as I was and following his advice of the snow bath, I made the return journey with ease and pleasure. I made long tramps for twenty years following and never again was I troubled by either blisters or cut feet. Even making short trips about the post hunting, I never allowed a knitted sock near my feet.
CHAPTER XXII.
DEER-SICKNESS.
The Indian term "deer-sickness" is in reality a misnomer, as it is not the deer that is sick but the party following its tracks. The idea of writing this article came to me by reading "Scent Glands of the Deer," which appeared in Forest and Stream of May 13, and I remembered how I had the deer-sickness thirty-eight years ago.
There are many surprises for a tenderfoot or greenhorn in the wild, but the name given to one of these very-much-to-be-pitied parties in the bush country from the Labrador to Lake Superior is mangers du lard. This is the universal cognomen by which a stranger in the north country is known. I found by tracing back that this soubriquet was first given by the French courriers du bois to a new hand entering the back country for the first time.
It is said that in those early days the French youths, from which new hands were recruited, lived at home on very scanty food, and when they got away working for the fur company, where pork was, comparatively, in abundance, they let their young appetites loose and ate the flesh of swine in prodigious quantities, whereby they became known as mangers da lard, i. e., pork eaters, and this denoted a stranger or greenhorn, the tenderfoot of the Western prairie.
I was somewhat of a greenhorn myself and suffered thereby by catching the deer-sickness. Like a good many other bad knocks that a beginner has to endure, this bit of sickness had an abiding effect on me and was never repeated.
My experience came about in this wise. I had accompanied a family of Indians to a deer battue, and after the general slaughter was over I was allotted the duty of following up a wounded deer; by the word deer I mean a wood caribou.
This particular buck had been shot at close quarters, the ball going clear through its stomach. While the shot had the effect of bowling the deer over it had not touched a vital spot, and during the excitement of the other shooting the animal got up and traveled away unobserved. The snow was pretty deep, nevertheless the further the deer went the better he appeared to get along. When this fact became evident to me, who was following his track, literally with my nose to the snow, I put on a greater spurt to try and end the jig. The deer by this time had become cognizant of being followed and he also increased his pace.
I now became aware of a weakness in my limbs, a nauseating smell in my nostrils and a faint and giddy sensation in my head. This uncomfortable feeling grew worse, and at last to save myself from falling I had to lean against a tree and wipe my brow with a handful of snow.
This had a momentary good effect. I saw clearly once more and pushing ahead redoubled my efforts to come within shooting distance of my deer. But I had not gone far before I felt a relapse coming and in a few moments I was in worse distress than ever. The last I remember was seeing a whirl of trees going around me. It was the last conscious moment before I fainted dead away and fell in my tracks in the snow.
Luckily the chief had sent his two boys to follow me up, not that he anticipated this ending, but for the purpose of skinning and cutting up the deer. It was providential he did, for otherwise I would never have awakened in this world. As it was, the cold had thoroughly penetrated my body and it was only after drinking a quart or two of hot tea that circulation resumed its functions.
After I had come around to the youth's satisfaction the eldest one started off after the cause of all my trouble, leaving his younger brother to replenish the fire and attend to my wants. The elder boy returned after an hour or two, having killed the deer, the proof, the split heart tucked in his belt. Darkness was then setting in, but the boys made ready to start for camp. What had taken me hours of toil to cover, they passed over in a very short time; in fact, we only saw my trail once or twice on the way out to the lake.
That night, after supper the chief told me of the "deer-sickness," and warned me against persistently following the trail. He continued and told how the Indians did and in after years I saw their mode and practiced it myself. He explained to be that a pungent odor exuded from the deer's hoofs when they were pursued and it was this that caused my weakness and distress.
The Indians in following deer cut the trail once in a while merely to make sure they are going in the right direction and to ascertain the freshness of the tracks. This is done with a two-fold purpose, first to avoid the odor from the fresh tracks and secondly to run or walk in the most open parts of the forest. Moose, caribou, and deer when fleeing from an enemy invariably pass through the thickest bush, because the snow is shallower under thick, branchy trees than in the open, therefore the Indian walks a spell on the right hand side of the trail, then crosses over and passes on the left.
From the topography of the country the Indian has a pretty good idea of the trend of the caribou's course, and the cutting of the trail from time to time is only to assure himself that he is correct in his surmise, and to judge by the tracks how near he is to the quarry. He thereby passes through the clearest country, has the best walking and escapes the nauseous effluvia emitted from the animals' hoofs.
It falls to us who live in the country the year round to hear amusing stories from the guides of their experiences with the "tenderfeet" that visit the north country during the open season. One that showed the cuteness of the guide was told me shortly ago by the man himself.
Dr. S---- came to Roberval with the expressed wish of taking home a caribou head of his own killing. He engaged George Skene as man of all work, and Old Bazil, the noted guide and successful hunter.
Although it is not customary for guides to take their guns when out with gentleman sportsmen, yet Old Bazil was an exception, as he always insisted on taking his. Around the camp-fire Dr. S---- spoke of his great wish to kill a caribou.
"Now," he said to old Bazil, "You bring me up close to one and I kill it, I'll give you a bonus of $10."
Several times next day during the still-hunt old Bazil would leave the doctor to await his return, while he would go forward reconnoitering carefully so there might be no mistake. At last he came back with the glad tidings to the doctor, that he had seen two caribou not far in advance of where they now were.
When it got to sneaking after Bazil through the last hundred yards to the few trees at the extreme edge of the forest, the doctor's heart was beating with such thumps that he thought the noise would start the game. The doctor at last reached the guide in the fringe of trees. Bazil told him that one of the deer was standing up, broadside on, while a little to the right was the second one lying down. The standing one being the larger of the two, and the only one having horns, was for the doctor to shoot, while the guide would take a pot-shot at the other. The doctor flattened out on his stomach and wriggled a few feet further, saw the deer through the branches, took aim and waited for Bazil to count the agreed one, two, three.
Bazil argued with himself that from the uncertain way the doctor's gun was wabbling about there were several hundred chances to one against his hitting the deer, and as a consequence, he would be minus his bonus.
So he employed a ruse. He counted the agreed signal to fire, but instead of firing at the one lying down, he drew a bead on the doctor's, and, of course, killed it.
At the report of the guns the caribou on the ground sprang up, and old Bazil, with consummate prevarication, said, "Oh! I missed it!" Aimed again, let go the other barrel, and killed this one also.
The doctor was wild with delight at his successful first shot, and expressed in many words his pleasure to old Bazil, who took it all in without a blush.
The old guide, who was standing up back of where the doctor fired, had taken no chance of missing with his smooth bore, but fired point blank at the deer's fore quarters. There was found on examination a frightful wound, and smashed bone; but the doctor was not versed enough in woodcraft to distinguish if this had been caused by a round bullet, and not the conical one from his own rifle.
The doctor was not a pot-hunter; he had what he came for, and had got it in almost record time, and was satisfied, so he fished for brook trout while Bazil carefully prepared the head for transportation and dried the meat for his own family. Then they journeyed back to Roberval, where the men were paid off, Bazil receiving a bright $10 gold piece as promised over and above his wages.
The doctor no doubt has that head, beautifully gotten up, hanging over his sideboard, and points to it with pride to his guests, saying, "I killed that head back of Kis-ki-sink, in Canada."
CHAPTER XXIII.
A CASE OF NERVE.
In the far interior where flour is scarce and our living consists of either fish or flesh, both of which we have to get when we can and how we can, the game laws are a dead letter. Nets were always in the water the year round and no one moved from the posts without a gun. Fish and potatoes were our staple diet and were it not for the abundance of the former we could never have lived in the country. Lakes were all about us and when one was fished out we moved our nets to another.
Flesh, however, could not always be got, and when the chance offered we killed, in season or out. Nothing, however, was wasted. Should we shoot a deer or moose in summer, the surplus over what we could consume in a day or two was either jerked and dried or salted. Many a time have my men had to visit our nets a mile or two off to get wherewith for our breakfast. If successful the fish had then to be cleaned and cooked before we broke our fast. Such being our hard battle for life I may be excused for the following story:
An Indian came in late one afternoon from his hunting grounds at the south to get his spring ammunition. It was about the middle of April and there was at the time a hard crust on the snow. He told us that on the way he had seen cuttings of a very big bull moose and he was sure he was on the top of a mountain near by where he had noticed the cuttings. He had no gun and besides the moose was useless to him so far from his camp being four or five miles from our post. Now he continued if you want to have him you can come along with me in the morning and you will surely kill him. He can't get away with the crust. The Indian was so sure of our success that he told me to take my two men with sleds to bring home the meat and hide.
As it was all ice walking except one short portage to the foot of the range of mountains he named, we decided to leave the post an hour or so before daylight so as to be there at the earliest possible moment. Our preparations were soon made and we took a little sleep dressed as we were and then started. We took two little partridge curs to head off the moose and keep him amused until I could catch up and shoot.
The hunt was going to be such a dead sure result that mine was the gun in the party. It was a smooth bore H. B. and carried bullets 28 to the pound. We had a cup of tea and a bite of galette at the foot of the mountain and left our sleds there together with the Indian's bundle of ammunition, tea, tobacco, etc., he had traded at the post. My men each carried one of the dogs in a bag to let go at the proper moment. As the Indian proposed in the first place to still hunt the bull, he reasoned that it being yet so early perhaps I would get a shot when he jumped up from his bed of the night.
We had to wear snow shoes in the green bush as the crust was not sufficient strong to support a man without them. We whipped strips of old rags about the frames to deaden the noise when walking on the hard snow. The Indian led off putting down each foot with the utmost care and I followed gun in hand the men being told to keep an acre or two behind us. The ascent was gradual and pretty free from undergrowth. We were getting near the summit when all at once the Indian called out, "he's off." After the stillness of our procedure these words were quite startling. The men heard him and hurried forward to us. The dogs were emptied out, they caught the tainted air in a moment and away they ran.
This was the first time I knew of an Indian's acute sense of smell, and after, when I came to consider it, could not think otherwise than that it was wonderful. From the place where we stood when he said, "The moose is away," was fully two acres to his lair, so it was impossible he could have seen or heard him go. In fact, he told me he smelt him when he sprang up. This I disbelieved at the time, but in after years had many instances that could not be doubted. Already the dogs were giving tongue down the descent on the other side and as they were barking apparently in the same place the moose was said to be at a standstill. The face of the mountain on the other side was wooded with a young growth of trees, in some places growing in thickets or clusters.
The Indian and the men followed me down hill and I approached the place where I heard the dogs, gun in hand. The dogs were, by the sound of their barking, running in on him and taking a nip at each run. After careful peering into the clump of trees I thought I made out his fore quarter and fired. The moose simply sat down and elevated his head until his neck appeared as long as that of a giraffe. I thought this was the forerunner of his tumbling over dead. This, however, was not the case, for the next minute he broke cover and charged straight for where I was standing, a distance of only a few yards. My companions turned and fled and I looked around for a suitable tree to dodge behind, but none was near. My left barrel was yet loaded and I realized my very life depended on my coolness and accurate shooting.
It takes considerable more time to write this down than the event itself took. I planted myself firmly on my snowshoes and waited the proper moment. All fear had passed and I fully realized it was death to me if I missed my shot. On he came his great eyes blazing green in his anger and the coarse hairs on his neck and shoulders standing up like quills. In a case of strong tension on the nerve like myself at that time moments appear hours. He was in the act of making his last spring before reaching me when I took a snap sight along the barrel and fired fair in the forehead. I had just time to step to one side when he fell dead right in my old tracks. Death had been so instantaneous that he was so to speak "killed on the fly." We skinned and cut up the meat and were back at the post before the midday thaw set in. It was only that night when I looked at the adventure from all points of view that I fully saw the great danger I had run.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AMPHIBIOUS COMBATS.
Very few of the present generation of hunters, I presume, have ever witnessed a fight between a beaver and an otter. I venture to think that the narrative of such an event will prove interesting to readers of Hunter-Trader-Trapper, especially as it comes first hand from the person who saw the fight from the start, and was in at the finish. It was an unique spectacle of once in thirty-five years of bush life.
I must digress a little at the start to explain that otters often, in the autumn, endeavor to find some tenantless beaver lodge situated on a chain of small lakes. If fortunate to find such, they at once pre-empt the old lodge and make it their home and headquarters. If the fish supply is ample in the lakes and small connecting creeks, they stay there until the snow hardens, and openings occur in the large rivers and then slide away to new fields, or rather, waterways. This migration is generally about the 20th of March in our Northern Country.
One day in the latter part of October I portaged my bark canoe over the divide into another chain of lakes, with the object of ascertaining if there were any beaver in that section. I came out to the shore of the lower lake of the string, in a small grassy bay, and was just in the act of taking the canoe off my head, when out in the bay, an acre or two from shore, I saw a beaver swimming on the surface at a high rate of speed. Being yet early in the afternoon I wondered at this and waited, with the canoe still tilted on my shoulders. All at once a long, shiny, snaky looking animal broke water in the wake of the beaver and a short distance behind the latter, evidently in pursuit.
The beaver was no sooner aware of this than he appeared actually to stand half out of the water, the next instant he turned and faced his pursuer. The distance between the two was so short that in a moment they were fast to each other's throat and then for some minutes neither could be seen for the churning and splashing of the water. I took the opportunity while they were thus engaged to unload my canoe and slip it half way into the lake ready to embark.
After the first fierce fighting impact and deadly grip, when they appeared pretty well exhausted — the fight going on at times on the surface — and again both would disappear beneath the waters of the lake, still locked together with the tenacity of bulldogs. Then they rose to the top, this time separated, and at some little distance apart, both plainly much spent. Then they circled about one another, much in the same way as two boxers sparring. Again a mad rush at each other, and again the strong jaws of his opponent, and the same scene was enacted again. I thought it was about time to push out and take a closer aspect of affairs. The fight was interesting, but the chance of getting a beaver and an otter, with one shot, far surpassed the proverbial, "two birds with one stone."
What little breath of wind that ruffled the bay was in my favor, so with both barrels of my gun cocked leaning against the canoe bar, I sculled the birch silently but swiftly thru the water unnoticed by the combatants. When just about to take my gun, "the moment too late" occurred right then, and they separated as by mutual consent; the beaver swimming toward the shore and the otter pawing the water in a blind, dazed sort of a way. The latter being the nearer to the canoe and the most valuable of the two, I fired and killed him. On the flash and report of the gun, the beaver dived and I pushed the canoe in his direction, with the other barrel ready when he should come up. I had over-shot the place when he had disappeared and waited looking toward the shore, where I expected he would next come to view. Minutes passed and no sign, I turned about in the canoe thinking possibly he had doubled under. Not ten feet from the stern of the canoe, there was Mr. Beaver, dead without my firing a shot, dead from his wounds. I pulled him into the canoe and paddled back and picked up the otter.
After getting ashore and examining them both carefully and again when skinning them, I found the beaver had died of his terrible wounds and no doubt the otter was in the last throes of his life also, when I gave him his quittance. The hair and skin on their bellies were much scratched and cut up by the sharp, hard claws of their hind feet. Their necks were one mass of teeth marks, and the jugular veins in each were pierced. Both would have died of their wounds in a little while, without the use of the gun, had I withheld my fire for a few minutes, for they were fast bleeding to death.
I ascertained afterwards that this beaver had been the only one in the lake; the otter no doubt had driven him out of his house, and not content with this had pursued him, courting battle. In the fight that ensued, of which I had been a witness, both had met their death.
The sight I witnessed some years ago is so unique that I think it will prove interesting to the readers of Forest and Stream.
I was at the time stationed right in the moose country, having for its center the great Kipewa Lake. One day toward the end of November, when, as yet only the bays of the big lake were frozen, I started to visit some mink traps in my canoe, accompanied by a small little rat of a dog. It was still open water in the body of the lake, but as I have said, the bays were frozen a couple of inches thick. There is a long point of land jutting into the lake. Open water washed the beach on my side of this; but on the other side was a frozen bay. I landed about the middle of the point to fix up a mink trap. The little dog ran up into the timber, and a minute or two after I heard him giving tongue in a savage manner for so small a beast, and I knew he must have started up something extraordinary, possibly a bear. I ran down to the canoe for my gun, and started off in the direction of the barking, which by that time was becoming more remote. Pushing on, I came out to the shore on the opposite side of the point. Here I witnessed a sight never before nor after seen by me during a residence of over thirty years in the wilds of Canada.
A large cow moose was slipping about on the glare ice trying to make her way to the other side of the bay. I was so spellbound for a few moments that I let the opportunity pass to shoot. The ice was so glare that it was with difficulty the large animal could make headway at all.
My little dog had now come up with her, and very pluckily nipped her heels. The huge beast tried to turn in her headway to face the cur. In doing so, her four feet all slipped at once from under her, and her great weight coming down so suddenly on the thin ice caused it to break in fragments, and the moose was in the water.
To get out of that hole with no bottom to spring from was more than that moose, or any other, could do, but the poor beast did not realize this, and continued swimming around, and every now and again getting its front hoofs on the slippery edge, only to fall backward again into the icy waters.
The dog followed it about the opening, barking continually, but the moose had more pressing business than to bother with a small dog. I saw that the creature would never succeed in extracting itself, and thought to end its misery. From where I stood the distance from the shore was about two hundred yards. I therefore started to load my gun (it was before the days of breechloaders), but when I got to the final of putting on the percussion cap, there was none.
Although I was positively sure the moose would be frozen stiff in that hole in the morning, the fascination of the sight kept me standing there on the rocks watching her struggles.
I must have stood there for two full hours, as the sun of the short November day began to get near the treetops, and a cold, cutting north wind began to blow.
The poor moose was now swimming about very slowly, and at times turning up on her side. This told me the end was not far off.
The last look I gave she had part of her head resting on the ice, and her body was floating on its side. Then I recrossed the point and paddled home as fast as I could.
Next morning we got a large canoe out of winter quarters, and with my two men we paddled back to the point, supplied with ropes and axes. The night had been a cold one, and had increased the thickness of the ice sufficient for us to walk upon. We cut a couple of long pines, or levers, and went out to the hole. The head was frozen just in the position I had last seen it, and this kept the body from sinking. Our first precaution was to chop the ice away about the carcass and get ropes about it. Then we got another around the neck and chopped the head clear.
We dropped it as it was to the shore, and there cut it up in quarters. All of the breast, neck and front legs were quite useless, being a mass of conjected blood and bruised flesh, caused by the moose's contact with the ice. These condemned parts, however, were not altogether useless, because I used them to bait my traps. Besides the eatable part of the meat, I got twenty pairs of shoes out of the hide.
Just after the above account of the very unusual occurrence was received, a press dispatch telling of a somewhat similar happening appeared in the New York newspapers. There is no doubt that accidents of one sort and another are responsible for the death of large game much more frequently than we imagine. It is certain also that among the young of such animals there is a considerable mortality, although we do not know that any observations on this subject have been recorded. Every man who has hunted much, however, has probably seen something of this, and we should be glad to record any such experiences of this sort which our readers have had. We ourselves have not infrequently found young deer and antelope that had evidently died from diseases, and more seldom have seen young elk, and on two occasions, young mountain sheep, dead, for whose taking off there seemed to be no reason to be advanced except sickness. It is well known that on the fur seal islands of the North Pacific and the Bering Sea, thousands of pups die annually from disease, in addition to the vastly greater number which starve to death through the killing of the mothers by pelagic sealing.
The Sun account above referred to reads as follows:
Captains Wisner, Verity and Ira Udall, who have been across the bay to Fire Island beach, arrived here to-day. They say that two deer, one a fine large six-year-old buck and the other a doe, had walked out on the ice and had broken through. They had been unable to get back to the mainland and were carried with the current. They drifted across the bay a distance of nearly ten miles and were being taken out into the ocean when seen by Captains Udall and Verity from the State wharf east of the lighthouse.
The two men put off in a lifeboat and succeeded in driving the buck ashore. The doe was almost dead by that time. Every effort was made to get her ashore and save her life. A rope was fastened around her body and she was soon on shore, although after no little effort. She soon, however, died of exhaustion. The buck ran off east on the beach, but unless its instinct is strong enough to teach it to follow the beast east to the mainland, seventy miles distant, it will soon starve, as the sand hills and meadows are now bare of vegetation.
CHAPTER XXV.
ART OF PULLING HEARTS.
I see by inquiries answered and letters from F. Edgar Brown in an issue of Hunter-Trader-Trapper that my casual mention of pulling the heart of the fox in "Reynard Outwitted," has struck a chord of interest with trappers. As the knack of pulling the hearts of the smaller animals trapped is worth knowing, and will save the hunter dirty work in the skinning of the pelts, I will describe the process as plain as I can.
It is bad enough to skin an animal that has been struggling in a steel trap, and got the imprisoned leg a mass of congealed blood, without adding to the disagreeableness of the job crushing in his head or breaking his back with a pole. This at least can be avoided by pulling down the heart till the cords snap. In no other way do Indians, or those who have learned trapping from Indians, kill the small animals they find alive when visiting their line of traps. Foxes, martens, minks and rabbits are always killed in this way. Lynx, of course, is a nasty animal to approach in a trap, still the Indian trapper never thinks of shooting, or hitting him with a pole. On the contrary they fix a noosed cord to a young sapling cut for the purpose, and snare him from the length of the pole; once over his head they stand on the pole and let him struggle till dead. This prevents blood from being on the skin. A live bear in a steel trap must be shot to make "a good bear of him."
But the Indian trapper again uses his judgment and waits till the first violent struggles are over, and the bear somewhat quiet, then the hunter takes careful aim and puts a bullet into his ear, being always at pretty close range. The ball passes clear thru the head, killing the bear instantly and making a wound that bleeds profusely, so that when the skinning process takes place, there is no blood in the body. The skin is cut around the throat, skinned towards the body and the head left as it is. However, this is digressing from the subject at issue.
The small animals I have mentioned when caught with snow on the ground, are simply walked on top of by the hunter's snowshoes; once he is pinned down so that he cannot move, the trapper slips his left hand under snowshoes and secures the fox or whatever it is by the neck with a tight grip of the thumb and fingers. Then the snowshoe is withdrawn until it holds the hind quarters only; the hand with the head and neck is elevated until the body is extended to its utmost.
The right hand now feels for the heart just below the bottom rib; it may not be there at once, but it will come. When the animal feels the grip tightening on his throat the sense of strangulation causes the heart to jump down and up in the body in the most violent manner. This the hunter seizes at one of the downward pumps, catches it between the thumb and fingers of the right hand; then pulling the body in one direction and the heart in the other, the heart-strings snap. The animal gives a convulsive quiver and you chuck him down dead.
Oh yes! it is much better than the brutal way of banging them on the head with the axe handle or a pole, and much more humane because the animal is dead at once, almost as quick as if shocked with electricity. Animals trapped in the late fall, or early snow, cannot be held by the snowshoe, therefore some other means must be taken. It does not do to take any risks of being bitten, for animals after struggling in a trap for some time, become more or less mad, consequently the venom getting into one's blood might cause a very bad wound to heal, especially as the man who hunts cannot avoid the cold getting into the sore, and then should such happen one cannot foretell what the sequel may be.
To avoid therefore all mishaps the hunter draws his belt axe, and cuts a forked young birch or alder, the handle part being about four feet long, at the extremity of which a fork is left with prongs of five or six inches long.
Presenting this to the trapped beast, he snaps at it; the trapper watches his chance and deftly slips the fork over his neck and with a quick downward push, marten, fox or fisher is secured. The left hand is exchanged for the forked stick, the right foot is placed on his hind quarters to keep him from clawing, then go for his heart with the right hand. One trying for the first time may have some little difficulty, but after a few animals have passed thru his hands he will as well as I do, know the ART OF PULLING HEARTS.
During my many years as a fur trader, part of the time has been passed on the frontier where opposition is keen and hunters, both Indians and whites, are careless in preparing their peltries for market. As long as they are dried in a way to keep, is all sufficient for them. Musquash will be simply drawn over a bent willow and dried in the blazing sun or near the camp fire. The little animal is hastily skinned and considerable fat is left on the skin, which, by being subjected to a quick and great heat, penetrates the skin and it is consequently grease burnt.
The greater number of beaver skins one gets about the Canadian villages are badly gotten up. This, in a great measure, is due to the French custom of buying by weights instead of by the skin, the hunters reasoning that the more meat, grease, flippers, etc., they can leave on, the greater number of pounds gross.
Mink and otter are the two hardest animals we have to skin clean, and the majority we get on the frontier go to the London markets in a shameful state, and must tend towards their decrease in value. I have seen foxes, minks, martens and musquash as taken crumpled like rags from the same bag. It was a great wrench for me after handling skins of every sort positively prime, and as clean as the paper upon which this is printed, for twenty years to find myself on the frontier buying such burnt and crumpled skins, as I found was the rule rather than the exception.
Yes, it was a pleasure to barter the furs hunted by our inland Indians; every skin was brought to the post hair side in. If the Indian had a bear, the two flanks were turned in lengthwise of the skin, then the hide was folded twice, the thick part of the head and shoulders being brought down on top of all as a protection to the thinner parts. Large beaver were folded crosswise of the skin twice, making a kind of portfolio about eighteen inches wide by twenty-eight to thirty inches long. Small beaver were folded once lengthwise of the skin, and these came to us as a rule, two placed inside of each large beaver as they went.
In the interior where the hunters have well defined grounds to trap on they, by self-interest, protect the beaver and kill comparatively few young ones. Our average for the whole year would probably be one small one to two middle or full grown. The martens are tied flat the whole length of the skins in bundles of ten each, with a thin splinter of cedar wood on top and bottom to prevent them from being crumpled in any way. Minks are treated just as carefully. Foxes, fisher and lynx are folded one crosswise and then placed either inside of beaver or bear skins. Thus nothing is exposed from an Indian's pack of furs, either to view or friction, but strong leather. Musquash, like all other skins except bear and beaver, are skinned from the head down and each skin is cased, which makes them clean, flat and nice to handle.
As their hunts are made during the cold months when the animals have their primest coats, and as every particle of flesh or grease is frost scraped, the skin lastly washed on the case and then the pelt dried by the action of frost alone, it can be readily understood with such care as I have tried to explain, that we get the very finest and most pleasing skins that go out of the country. The Indian's business is to hunt and bring the fruits of the chase or traps to his wigwam; it is his wife and daughters' duty to skin and cure the pelts. The Indians have the pride and ambition to vie with their sister matrons of the forest as to who will get up the cleanest, best and "well prepared skins."
CHAPTER XXVI.
DARK FURS.
It is not perhaps generally known that the surroundings of most animals have a primary effect on the color of their hair. Beaver, otter, mink and musquash are dark or light colored according to the water they live in. Clear, cold water lakes produce skins of a deep glossy black, muddy lakes on the other hand, furnishing light colored fur.
Having studied this in my own hunting and trapping, I have often surprised an Indian when trading his skins by saying: "You trapped this and this skin in a clear water lake," and he has admitted it as true. Another peculiar fact in relation to deep, cold water lakes is that, while the skins they produce are of the finest quality, they are also much smaller in size than those trapped in brown or muddy water, and this applies to all the animals I have mentioned.
Musquash killed in clear water lakes are about two-thirds the size of those trapped in grassy, sluggish rivers, and it is the same with mink. This rule holds good also with land animals, such as marten, those living in and resorting to black spruce swamps being invariably dark colored, whereas those in mixed pine, birch and balsam hills are larger and lighter in color.
For seven years I trapped on a chain of lakes, five in number. One of these lay off at one side, not over a quarter of a mile from the other four; it was of considerable extent, possibly a mile and a half long by a quarter wide. This lake was very clear and deep, and used to freeze over two weeks later than the others, and open that much earlier in the spring.
On the borders of this lake, which was known as "Clear Water Lake," were two beaver lodges, which I preserved with the greatest care, only trapping a few out of each lodge every fall, thus keeping up the supply, and finer and more beautiful skins I never handled. This valley being within a few miles of the post, I got the Indian who owned the lands to make over his rights for a consideration, and I kept these lakes as a home farm or preserve as long as I remained in that district.
It was in the upper one of these lakes that I trapped the most extraordinary beaver of my experience, he having only one hind foot, the other feet having been gnawed or twisted off in traps. The Indian owner of the lands, when selling his good will, told me of this desperate and cunning old animal and I passed many a long, solitary evening in my canoe to get a shot when the knowing old card broke water.
I kept two or three traps well set, with a very remote possibility of his putting his only remaining foot therein. Beaver medicine and castorum would not allure him, and the thought occurred to me to try anise seed oil, which I did, and on my next visit had the satisfaction of pulling him up drowned at the end of the chain. The wounds of the cut off legs were so thoroughly healed that when I skinned him there was not even a pucker of the skin in the places where the legs should have been. It is a marvel how he managed to navigate the waters of his native pond, but as the boy said, "I don't know how he did it, but he did."
Another freak that I caught in those same lakes was the only albino beaver that I ever saw. She had a creamy white fur, with pink eyes, pink toe nails and pink scales on her tail. This may not have been phenomenal, but it was a rare skin for all that. At a conservative estimate I must have handled a couple hundred thousand beaver skins in my life, but this is the only instance that I ever saw a white one.
The Clear Water Lake, not to be behind in oddities, produced a dwarf beaver. I caught him late in the fall in a trap set for musquash, the other lakes being frozen over. He was about the size of an ordinary full grown rat, but was fully developed and must have been two years old. At first I thought he might be of a second litter, but I thought this was very improbable, if not quite outside of nature, so I carefully examined the teeth and organs, and found to intents and purposes he was a full grown beaver.
Writing of full grown beaver puts me in mind of those early trapping days, and the logic of a certain Indian. Then we used to pay so much a skin for beaver, and graded the skins as big, middling and small. In culling this man's skins I threw one into the pile of middling ones and he immediately said: "That's a big one," and I said it was not and compared it with several of the large ones. He, however, stoutly maintained it was a big one and said, "Look at the white men, there are big ones and small ones, but they are men the same." I stood corrected and placed the disputed skin with his better grown and developed relatives, the Indian gave an almost audible smile, and things went on amicably.
On the watershed between the valley of the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, marten are prime on the first of October. Beaver, otter and mink are prime on the 25th of October and fox and lynx the 15th of November. I have often seen the question asked in the H-T-T as to the time the several kinds of fur are prime in different localities, and the above dates can be depended upon for the latitude mentioned.
It pays the trapper to have his trap-houses made and his traps hung up ready to set and bait immediately when the skins are prime. They are easily cleaned and command a much higher average, whereas if the majority of skins in a man's pack are unprimed or staged, it takes away from the value of the few really few good ones.
The buyer, to get these few merchantable skins, has to put some kind of value on the culls to make a buy, but in reality the trader is only paying for the few good ones and the trapper loses the other skins. And who is to blame? Trappers have been told time and again that trapping too early in the season is against their best interests; nevertheless they go blindly on, killing the poor beasts that have little or no value, and then they marvel at the scarcity of the fur-bearing animals and the little return they have to show for a couple of months' hard work.
No. If there is any line that wants protection and a cast iron union between the men connected with the industry, it is the fur trade. All are, or ought to be, interested in the keeping up of the supply and quality, the trapper, wholesale man and manufacturer alike. Let the last two unite and not buy unprime skins, and the former for want of a market would very soon hunt in season only.
In this northern country fur-bearing animals continue prime much longer than elsewhere. The trappers and hunters (Indians) only come down from the interior from the tenth of June, and all the way down to the end of the month. Thus the month of June is the fur buying month.
Prior to the Paris Exposition a fair and legitimate trade was possible, the Indians got a fair and reasonable price for their skins, and as a rule were reasonably honest. But that year marked the demoralization of the fur trade on this coast. Opposition became keen and fur buyers from Quebec, Boston, New York and Paris, came to the different places of resort of the Indians, bidding up raw furs to prices out of all reason. The consequence of which were, and are, that the Indian did not pay his furnisher, but kept up his finest furs to sell to these parties for high cash prices.
Other traders followed the fur buyers, and sold the Indians useless trashy articles. The result is the Indians have to leave for the bush ill supplied with warm clothings, provisions, etc. — what he actually requires. A large portion of his hunt has been sold for abnormal prices, but the proceeds has done him no perceptible good. On the contrary, his lot is much worse than it was before. Seeing his advances have not been paid, the resident trader will not supply these men again.
I take about the Post of Seven Islands as perhaps being the place where the highest prices have been paid for three years, 1899, 1900 and 1901, and give the readers of Hunter-Trader-Trapper the figures. They are as follows: