CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE TRAPPING WITH AN INDIAN
But the Indians were not always a burden. They sometimes gave me good help. At one time in particular I found an Indian who proved a friend in need. It was during the winter of 1866–7, the year after I had brought my wife from Oxford, Idaho, to Bloomington.
“Hogitsi,” a Shoshone Indian, with his family, was wintering in the town at the time. The whites called him “Hog,” but he hadn’t a bit of the hog in his nature. I found him to be one of the best Indians I ever knew.
After I had got well acquainted with him, he proposed that we try trapping to make some money. I was hard up; my family was destitute of food and clothing, for I had hard luck that summer, so I was ready to try anything.
We set to work over in Nounan Valley on a little stream about fifteen miles from home. The results were very encouraging. At the end of the first week we came back with sixty dollars’ worth of furs. It was the easiest money I ever made in my life. Such success made us ready to try again.
New York Zoölogical Society
A mink.
“Hog” proposed that we go down to the Portneuf country and spend the winter at the trapping business. He said he knew of a stream there that was full of beaver and mink and other fur animals. I was anxious to go, but my wife protested that she could not think of my going off for a whole winter with an Indian. She was sure I would be scalped. It was hard work for me to persuade her that under our circumstances it was the right thing to do. She finally consented, however, and we set to work to get ready.
With “Hog” to help we soon had enough winter’s wood chopped up to last my family through the winter. I did all I could otherwise to leave them comfortable; but the best I could do was not enough to keep them from having a hard time of it while I was away.
I had three horses. “Hog” got two more from Thomas Rich; and Joseph Rich, who kept a store in Paris, supplied us with provisions and camp outfit upon our agreeing to sell to him what furs we should get.
New York Zoölogical Society
Beaver and beaver lodge.
It was about a week after New Year’s that we struck out northward through the cold and snow. The snow got deeper and deeper as we went on towards Soda Springs. It seemed impossible to make our destination. I suggested that we turn back, but “Hog” wouldn’t listen to me. He said that we would find the snow lighter from there on, and it would be only a day or two more before we got to the Portneuf. So I yielded and we pushed on till we reached Dempsey Creek, a branch of the Portneuf. Here we made our winter camp at the base of the lava cliffs that border the stream near where it empties into the Portneuf. We chose a good place on the sunny side of the rock, and built our quarters. A cleft up the face of the cliff served us well. By building up a fourth side to this cleft, we made a fine chimney and fireplace. Around this we made our shack—of quaking aspen poles and willows, and long grass to thatch it. For a door we used the skins of two white-tailed deer stretched over a quaking aspen frame. Our house was a cosy shelter from the storms, and roomy enough to store our bales of furs. For wood we used cedar, which grew near by.
Within the cedars we found plenty of black-tail deer, while in the willows the white-tail were so numerous that we had little trouble to get all we needed. Trout we could catch at any time; so we had food in abundance.
When it came to trapping, we found beaver and mink so thick that it was no trick at all to catch them. Otter were not so plentiful, but we did land several of these beautiful animals.
I tended the traps and did the cooking. Hogitsi skinned the animals, stretched the fur, and kept watch of the horses. He was a good worker—not a lazy thing about him. Usually he was in bed an hour before me, and up an hour earlier. By the time I was ready to tumble out, he had the fire roaring, and was at work on the skins. While I got breakfast, he would look after the horses, and bring my old buckskin mare to camp. After breakfast I would get on her and ride the rounds of the traps to see what luck the night had brought. Usually I found the traps all sprung and a beaver or mink or sometimes an otter in them, tail up, and drowned in the stream. For we weighted the traps with a rock to hold the animal, when caught, under water. If the animal is not drowned, he will often gnaw off his foot and get away. After taking out the game, I would reset the traps, and return to camp with my load.
To keep the traps going kept me busy all day. We caught animals so fast that I had sometimes to stop and help Hogitsi catch up with his skinning and stretching. We would sit up at times late at night at this work. Evidently little trapping, if any, had ever been done on this stream, for the animals seemed not to know what a trap meant.
If it hadn’t been for the worry I had for my dear ones at home, the winter would have been a pleasant one in every way. It was one of the easiest I ever spent, and most profitable. I never have made money faster than I did that winter. When springtime came, we had about seven hundred pounds of fur. At that time mink and beaver skins sold at two dollars per pound; otter was worth one dollar a foot. A stretched otter skin would often bring nine dollars or more.
When we turned over our pack to Mr. Rich, we found we had $900.00 due us after paying all our expenses. He paid us in gold, silver, and greenbacks. Hogitsi was scared when he saw the pile; and when it came to dividing, he certainly proved that he was no hog; for he simply would not take his full share. He insisted that we should not have had any if it hadn’t been for me; that it would “make him too rich.”
This streak of good luck gave me a new start. My wife felt better about the trapping business; but she had no desire to repeat the experience of that winter; and, as I found other profitable work to do, I did not turn to trapping again as a business, though I have done a good deal of this work at various times since. And I have also done a good deal of trading in furs with the trappers.
This trading has brought me into acquaintanceship with a good many of the mountaineers. It was through this that I came to know Kit Carson, who came to my home hunting his trapper son-in-law, Sims, one winter. Sims was wintering near at the time. Kit stopped over night with me. I brought his son-in-law to my home and they made up their troubles. Kit wanted to stay with me for a while. I took him in, and we boarded and lodged him for several months. We had a good time together swapping yarns that winter, I can tell you.
“‘We intend to tie you to that tree and burn you alive.’”