“My little son,” Ganawa said, laughing, “Ohnemoosh is a great liar. He thinks he can fool us. We have no white man’s chain, but some day I may show you how to tie up Ohnemoosh so he has to stay in camp.” [[179]]
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BEAVER HUNT
If Bruce and Ray had ever had the idea that Indians in camp led a lazy life, they now found out their mistake.
Ganawa had made two chisels out of the big bones of a moose, and these chisels the lads learned to use in peeling spruce and cedar bark for a winter bark-house. They also secured some pieces of birch-bark, but most of the birches would no longer peel. However, with the aid of their bone chisels they soon secured enough spruce and cedar bark to build a round hut of poles and bark, such as the Chippewa Indians have built for many centuries. No nails were used in the construction of the house, the pieces of bark being tied in place with watap, rawhide, or thongs of willow bark.
“We need this house if our tepee gets too cold, and if we live in the tepee we [[180]]need it to keep our meat and other things so we do not lose them in the deep snow,” Ganawa told the lads.
When the bark-house was finished, he told the boys that they must secure some kind of skins to make themselves a robe for winter. “Our women make very warm blankets,” he explained, “by weaving together many strips of rabbit skins, but rabbits are very scarce around here. The hide of a moose is too heavy, so we must try to get some beavers. But we have no traps and we cannot wait till the ponds freeze over; we must try to catch them when they are cutting trees. I think in this country the beaver have not been hunted much, and we may find them working in the daytime.”
A few days later, the Chippewa returned to camp and told that he had found a beaver pond not far away, and on the following afternoon the three campers started out to try their luck on the shy and wary beavers. Tawny was also allowed to go along, for he was a good hunting dog, and never broke [[181]]until he was told to go. The hunters approached with the utmost care, against the wind, the place where the beavers were cutting their winter food supply of poplars. The pond had been occupied for several years, the trees near the pond had all been cut, and as a result the animals had to work more than fifty yards from water.
In the water and in his house surrounded by water, a beaver can laugh at all his enemies with the possible exception of the otter. But even the otter, although like the beaver, he is an expert swimmer and diver, probably has to be content with catching a careless young beaver now and then. However, on land the beaver is less at home than any old-time sailor ever was; he can neither put up a good fight nor make a good run for safety.