CHAPTER VII
A TALK ABOUT BEAVER
"Well, now, Hugh," asked Jack, "what can you tell me about beaver trapping?"
"Why, son," said Hugh, "I can tell you whole lot about beaver trapping. There is a great big book to be written yet about beaver and how to trap them, and when that book is written there will be enough left out of it to make another book."
"I've always heard," said Jack, "that beaver was about the smartest animal there was, and the one most difficult to trap, but, of course, I don't know anything about it. I have seen a few dams and the tops of a few houses up north, but you can't learn much about beaver by looking at his work."
"No," said Hugh, "not much, and before you can learn anything about trapping beaver, you've got to know something about the nature of the beast."
"Well, that's the very thing I want you to tell me about," replied Jack. "I want to find out all that I can about the beaver, before I see any. In the first place, suppose you tell me how big they are."
"Well," said Hugh, "they are the biggest gnawing animal we have in this country. A full grown beaver will weigh from forty to sixty pounds; perhaps big ones will average as heavy as a half sack of flour."
"My," said Jack, "that's bigger than I supposed they were. I have always heard of the beaver as a little animal. It seems to me that it's a big one."
"Yes," said Hugh, "it's quite a sizable animal, and if you've got a half dozen to pack to your camp on your back you'll think they are pretty good sized animals before you get them all in."
"Well, where do they live?" said Jack.
"I reckon," replied Hugh, "that they live all over this country of North America, from Texas north as far as there are any trees. You know that the food of the beaver is the bark of certain trees, and, of course, they can't live anywhere except where these trees grow, but I have heard of them 'way down in Texas, and I know that the Northern Indians away up toward the limit of trees trap beaver a plenty, so that I expect they are found over the whole country. I have heard your uncle say that there were some beaver in Europe, but over there I reckon they have been about cleaned out. Too many people killing 'em, I reckon."
"Well," said Jack, "I guess they are found all over North America, north of the United States, anyhow; because I know that the coat of arms of Canada has the beaver on it."
"Yes, I reckon the beaver was the reason that Canada was settled, and in fact the beaver was what led men into all this western country. In the early days, soon after Lewis and Clark went across the continent, the fur traders began to push their way into this western country, north and south, and beaver was what they were after. You see in those days it was a mighty valuable fur, worth a good deal more than it's ever been since.
"Just as soon as the white men came into the country and found the Indians wearing robes made of beaver, and clothing trimmed with beaver and other fur, they began to trade for the robes, and to tell the Indians that if they'd bring them in beaver skins they'd give them knives and needles and beads, and later, rum, and, of course, that set the Indians to killing beaver as fast as they could.
"But, as I say, it wasn't until after Lewis and Clark got across the continent that trapping began down in the United States. Along in the 30's, though, white men began to get up fur companies and to hire the best trappers that they could get, and they pushed out in all directions, up the Arkansas, up the Platte, and up the Missouri River, setting their traps in every valley and cleaning out the beaver as fast as they could. Then they got into the mountains, and there they found more beaver and better fur, and there, too, is where they began to run across Indians to bother them. The Blackfeet were the worst. They used to steal our horses and take our traps, and now and then a scalp, when they could, and they made us a great deal of trouble. The prices for fur were good until in the 40's, just before I got out into the country. Then they fell, and for the next twelve or fifteen years every old trapper that you met was growling about the fact that beaver weren't worth anything any more.
"Your uncle tells me that there has been a whole lot of books written about those early trapping days, but I have never seen any of them. Of course, then it was all wild country and lots of things were happening, and a man had to keep his eyes open pretty wide. As I have told you, the Indian wars did not begin until long after that, and most of the trouble that we had with the Indians was with parties of wild young men, who had started off to war, and were anxious to get glory, and to go back to their villages and brag about what they had done. The fights were with these little parties and not with the tribes. But, at the same time, a bullet or an arrow from one of these little parties would kill a man just as dead as if he had been fighting with a tribe."
"That's all mighty interesting, Hugh," said Jack. "It seems to me that you never get through telling me interesting things about this country in the old times. I wish that I knew how to write, so that I could put it all down, and some day write a big book about your adventures."
"Well," said Hugh, "I'm mighty glad you can't do that. I reckon if I were to see you taking all these notes down in a notebook I wouldn't talk so much as I do."
"Well," said Jack, "if I knew how to write, you bet I'd write such a book. I sort of wonder that Uncle George has never done that. He spends a great deal of his time writing in winter, when he is back in New York."
"Well," Hugh went on, "let's go ahead about the beaver. You know that they build dams across streams to hold back the water, and that they build houses in the ponds that they make. Have you ever looked carefully at these dams?"
"No, I don't believe I have," Jack replied; "people have pointed them out to me, and they've shown me places along the streams where trees and brush had been cut down, and have said to me, 'that's beaver work,' and I have seen piles of sticks in the water and have been told that those were houses, but I never had any idea how any of this work was done."
"They build their dams across streams," said Hugh, "and hold back the water and often spread it over quite a wide space of the valley, and in this water they build their houses. I have always supposed that the ponds were made as a protection for the animals. You see, they are big and slow. They can't run away from anything that wants to kill them, and so the only means they have of getting away from their enemies is to dive down into the water and swim under it. Then their enemies, whether they are humans or animals, can't follow them. Of course, I have no more idea than you how the beaver got the idea of protecting themselves in this way, but I believe it is for protection they make these ponds, and for nothing else. You'll see that their houses are built out in pretty deep water, and when they are scared from shore they go out and get into their houses, and if somebody tries to pull down the houses where they live, then they can swim to the shore and hide there, with their noses just above water."
"Well," said Jack, "that's news to me. I always accepted the fact that they built dams to hold the water back, but I never had any idea why they did it."
"No," said Hugh, "I reckon not. I never heard anybody that did know why, but I am just giving you my idea. You'll hear a whole lot of stories about the wonderful things that beaver do, and in many of these stories there is not a grain of truth, but they do wonderful things enough as it is. You don't have to lie about them to make them out mighty smart animals."
"Yes," replied Jack, "I have heard of some of these wonderful things. 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."
"Yes," said Hugh, "I have heard that story, too, but I don't believe it. Beaver will cut down trees, and mighty big ones, too, but I don't believe that they can cut down a tree so that it will fall in a particular direction, and if it does fall in a direction to be useful to them, that's just nothing but accident. What they cut trees down for is for the food that they know is growing on the tree. They want to get at the tender bark of the branches for their food, and that's what they cut the trees for. All the same, it's mighty wonderful sometimes to see what big trees they will cut down, and how smart they are about cutting them. They will gnaw a deep gouge below and then gnaw another cut eight or ten inches above, and pull the chip out; a chip just about as big as an axman would cut out with an ax. They are smart about that, but they haven't any idea which way the tree is going to fall."
"Well," said Jack, "that seems natural enough, and besides that, I should think that even if beaver did know how to fell the tree to lie in a particular direction, they could not always do it with these crooked old cottonwood trees that grow along the streams."
"Yes," said Hugh, "some of them are so crooked and grow so slantwise that no axman could fell them the way he wanted."
"I have seen it stated in books, too," Jack went on, "that they always fell a tree just long enough to reach across the stream, and no longer. I never could see how that could be, because it would be impossible for beaver to measure the height of a tree."
"Oh," said Hugh, "that's all nonsense; they don't do anything like that. There is one thing which they do, though, that people don't give them credit for, or at least I have never heard anybody speak about it; they'll build a dam across a creek and raise the water, and make a big wide pond. Maybe the water flows over the top of the dam pretty freely for its whole length. Such a pond will be lived in for a good many years. During all those years the rain and the melting snow, and all the water that falls, carries down from the hills soil and dead leaves and sticks and a whole lot of trash, and after a time the pond fills up and gets too shallow for the beaver to use it. Then maybe they'll raise the dam for its whole length, and make the pond bigger, and then after years of time this larger pond will partly fill up and grow shallow. After a time the beaver will, perhaps, leave the pond, and go somewhere else to build another. Then, after a few years the dam will rot out and break down, the pond will go dry, the water will get back to its old channel, and grass and willows and other brush will grow up over the old bottom of the pond, and there you've got a big wide flat—what we call a beaver meadow. All along streams all over this western country there are big strips of flat land that have been made just in this way by the beaver."
"I have never thought of that before, Hugh, and I never heard anybody speak of it. The time may come when people will farm on these big flats, never knowing how they were made."
"Yes, that's a fact," said Hugh, "and already there are lots of places down toward the prairie where folks have started ranches on land of just that sort.
"Let me tell you another thing that beaver are smart about. Sometimes they will make a pond in a particular valley, quite a distance from any place where their food grows. Often there are no willows, and the quaking aspen grows only along the foothills, maybe quite a little distance from the edge of their pond. Sometimes they will dig out a ditch or canal all the way from the edge of the pond up close to where the aspen grows. Of course, the water from the pond fills up these ditches, and the beaver will follow them up close to the aspens, cut down their feed there, and cutting the trees and brush into convenient lengths, carry them to the ditches, dump them in and then take and swim with them back to their houses, or the places where they store their food. This always seemed to me pretty smart, because, while it must be a lot of work for them to dig the ditch, it's a tremendous saving of labor for them to be able to float these sticks to where they want them."
"That seems to me mighty intelligent, Hugh, and I should think, too, that they might have another motive in digging these ditches. If they had to travel two or three hundred yards on dry land, wouldn't there be a good deal of danger of their getting caught away out from the water and killed?"
"Lots of danger," said Hugh, "and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they made these ditches more for their safety than to save themselves work. They are mighty industrious animals, the beaver. You know, if we see a man that is hard at work all the time, we say he works like a beaver. They are busy animals, and they keep at it all the time."
"What animals are there, Hugh, that kill the beaver? I suppose man is the worst enemy it's got, but there must be a lot of others, such as wolves and, perhaps, bears."
"Yes," said Hugh, "a beaver has lots of enemies. As I have said to you, it's heavy and slow; it can't run away nor climb a tree, and it has no special means of defending itself. A beaver's got a good set of teeth, but while he can give one or two pretty strong bites, that would not help him much in a scrap with any animal near his own size.
"A bear, of course, would kill a beaver every time if he could get hold of him; so would a big wolf. A single coyote might not be able to, but two or three coyotes could get away with him in short order.
"Didn't you ever, back East, see a dog get between a woodchuck and his hole? You know the woodchuck will sit up and chatter his teeth, and perhaps he will bite the dog once when the dog runs in, but that's the end of the woodchuck. The beaver has got longer teeth, and can bite a little harder and deeper, but he is not built for fighting, and what's more, he never means to fight if he can help it.
"The wolverine sometimes lies around beaver ponds and maybe once in a while catches one, but wolverines are pretty scarce, and I don't think they get many. I believe that the animal that gets more beaver than any other is the lynx. They are small, to be sure, but they are mighty quick, and they have got those long claws, and they can jump on a beaver and cut him up pretty badly before he can get hold of them. I have often seen places where beaver had been killed, and I know it was done by lynxes; that is, by bob-cats, and also by the big gray lynxes. One time, a good many years ago, I saw a lynx waiting to catch a beaver. As it happened, he didn't get him, but he tried hard enough.
"I happened to be riding down William's Fork, and had to pass through a point of timber, and just before I got out to the pond, on the other side, I stopped my horse for a minute to look around and see what I could see. There was a big beaver dam just below me, on the river, and I knew of it, for I had often passed there. I could see nothing, and was just going to start on again, when, as I happened to look over across the creek just opposite me, I saw something move. For a minute I could not tell what it was, and then I saw lying among the sage brush a big bob-cat, whose color matched the ground and the weeds about him so well that it was hard for me to make out his shape. At one end of him, however, there was something black that kept moving regularly in little jerks, and, of course, I knew that this was his tail, and that he was watching something in the stream and getting ready to jump on it. I looked at the stream carefully, and for a moment could not see anything, and then, just below the bob-cat, I made out something swimming in the water, close under the bank, but to save my life I could not tell whether it was a duck, or a muskrat, or what. When this thing, whatever it was, had got nearly to the bob-cat, which kept crouching flatter and flatter all the time, the thing suddenly dived and hit the water a tremendous rap with its tail, and then, of course, I knew that it was a beaver that had been swimming up stream, and that the bob-cat had seen it, and was waiting for it to get within reach, and then was going to jump on it. Of course, bob-cats don't like the water very well, but all the same, they will go into it for food."
"What did the bob-cat do when the beaver dived, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Oh, after a minute or two," said Hugh, "he seemed to realize that the game was up, and he then got up and walked away into the sage brush. I have often wished that the beaver had come on a little further so that I could have seen the end of the thing, and seen whether beaver or bob-cat would have come out ahead. You see, the beaver must have been swimming in pretty deep water, and, of course, if he had had sense enough to grab the bob-cat and hold on to him, no doubt he could have drowned him, but I don't reckon the beaver would have had sense enough for that; he would have just tried to get away, and I guess he would have succeeded."
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "it is interesting to hear of these animals, but as you say, it's pretty hard work to really learn anything about them by reading or hearing people talk. The real way is to see the animals themselves, and I hope we will do that before very long."
"Yes, son, we ought to. In fact, by to-morrow afternoon we ought to get to where there used to be a great big beaver meadow. I don't know, of course, whether we will find any beaver there now or not, but it's a good place to go and look for them. I have seen the time when it was full of beaver, and if we could find it as full now as it was then, we ought to be able to load up a pack horse with fur."
"My!" said Jack; "don't I wish we could. That would be fine."
"Put some more wood on the fire, son," said Hugh, "and I'll smoke my pipe, and then we'll go to bed."
Jack rose from his comfortable seat, and going over to where some cottonwood branches had been dragged together, brought two or three good-sized logs, and raking the fire together, threw them on. The dry wood blazed up with a cheerful flame that almost reached the branches of the pine tree beneath which their tent was pitched, and Hugh, after filling his pipe and lighting it by means of a twig thrust into the fire, sat back and declared that this was solid comfort.
"It's a bully good camping place, isn't it?" said Jack.
"First class," was the reply, "and we are going to have good weather and good country to camp and travel in all summer, except when we have thunderstorms. Of course, we have got to expect that, for there is lots of thunder and lightning in these mountains. We will get wet once in a while, but that's no great harm."
"No, indeed," said Jack, "getting wet is a part of the play."
"Tell me, Hugh," he added after a pause, "what other fur may we expect to see here?"
"Why, son," said Hugh, "there is mighty little that will be good now, except bears. As I told you at the ranch, any bears that we can kill before the first of July will be good prime skins, but right after that they begin to get sunburned and rusty, and begin to shed off, and then, the first thing we know, they are not worth skinning for about three months. Along in October they begin to get a pretty good coat again, though it is not so very long."
"Well," persisted Jack, "there is fur in the mountains here, I suppose."
"Lord, yes," said Hugh. "There are a few otter, lots of mink, and a few marten high up in the hills; once in a while a wolverine, and once in a while a fisher; but none of this fur, except the otter, will be good in summer, and otters are so scarce that they are not worth bothering with."
"I should not have supposed there would be any otter here, because the streams are so small."
"There are not very many," said Hugh, "but yet more than you think. You see there are worlds of fish in many of these mountain streams, and where there are fish you are pretty sure to find otter. In some of the lakes high up in the mountains I have seen lots of otters, but as I say, there aren't enough to try to trap."
"What is the fisher, Hugh?" asked Jack. "I have heard of that animal, but I don't very well know what it is. Is that the same creature that the books speak of as the black cat?"
"I reckon it is," replied Hugh. "I have heard some trappers call them by that name. Really, it always seemed to me like a big marten, and why people called it fisher, I don't know. I never saw one near water, and I don't believe they catch fish. They are great things to climb round in the trees, and they are quicker in them than any squirrel you ever saw. I have seen them chasing martens and I believe that they eat them. I know they eat porcupines, for though I never saw one kill a porcupine, I have seen them with porcupine quills in their faces and in their forelegs, but bless you, the quills didn't seem to bother them a mite. You take a dog or a cat that had as many quills in it as I have seen in some fishers, and it would be all swelled up and not able to see out of its eyes, nor to walk; but I have seen fishers stuck full of quills and I never saw one swelled up or apparently hurt at all. They don't seem to get inflamed by the quills the way a dog or a cat does."
"I suppose, Hugh, there is no great chance of our being able to shoot any of these animals while we are hunting?"
"No," replied Hugh, "I don't think there is. Of course, you never can tell what you might run across when you are going through the timber or up over the rocks on the mountains, but as a rule these animals will see, or hear, or smell you before you know they are around, and they'll just slip out of sight, and either get away as fast as they can, or else watch you to see what you are going to do. I remember that the only wolverine I have killed in a good many years was one that I saw traveling along over the rocks when I was up above timber-line one time waiting to try to kill a sheep. He just walked up within easy shot, and, of course, I killed him. A mighty pretty looking animal he was, too, with his smooth coat all shining in the sun and blowing in the breeze.
"But, look here, son, if you and I are going to get off in any sort of season to-morrow morning we'd better turn in now. Suppose you go down to the creek and get a bucket of water, and I'll go out and look around through the horses, and then we'll make down our beds."
"All right," said Jack, and he did as requested, and a little later the camp was peacefully sleeping, as the fire died down.