”We went to his nest under the barn, and there was the box, licked as clean as a woman could wash it. The wicked brute hauled it up, bit the rope in two, and carried off the butter. That sealed his fate: mother said she wouldn’t intercede for him any more, and I couldn’t say a word, though I wanted to; and so ‘he died of butter.’
“I felt so bad that I never cared to have any pets after that.”
CHAPTER XXII.
RAID ON A BEAVER SETTLEMENT.
They now occupied every moment, from daylight and before, till in the evening, in hunting bears, digging out coons, stretching and scraping the skins, and trapping beaver and foxes.
The camp inside was hung around with skins, and outside the snow was covered with the bodies of the different animals, which attracted the wolves in troops, and the woods resounded with their howlings.
Uncle Isaac set a steel trap in a spring of water, and caught two silver-gray foxes. He now took four of the large mackerel-hooks, fastened them together, and wound them with twine, so as to form a grappling, fastened a strong cord, made of twisted deer sinews, to them, dipped them in grease, permitting it to cool after every dip, till the hooks were all covered in the great bunch of grease, fastened the rope to a tree, and kept watch. It was not long before a hungry wolf swallowed the ball of grease, and, the hooks sticking in his throat, he was caught. The steel traps, which were very scarce in that day, and were all imported, were used for beaver, otter, and two of them for foxes; the other animals were taken in dead-falls and box-traps.
As they had a frow, to split out boards, and a saw, they made many box-traps, putting them together with wooden pins, and in them caught great numbers of minks and muskrats; they also killed many deer and moose.
The traps for beaver were set in holes cut in the ice, and the bait was scented, and made attractive with the composition in Uncle Isaac’s vials. Another method was to dig a pit in the ground, make a road to it with stakes, then hang a board between the stakes, so nicely balanced, that, when the animal stepped upon it, it would turn, and let him into the pit. In order to attract the game, the bait was dragged along the ground, that it might leave its scent between the line of stakes, then placed beyond the pit, that the animal, in following up the scent, might step on the trap. The dead-falls were constructed by making an enclosure of stakes, open at one end, inside of which a piece of wood was laid on the ground crosswise, and fastened. They then fastened a heavy piece of hard wood to a stake with a peg, so that it would play up and down easily: this was called the killer, the end of which was held up by a thong of deer sinew, which went over another crotchet stake driven into the ground. Through this stake a hole was bored, to admit a spindle; the string which held up the killer was fastened by a flat piece of wood, one end of which went into a notch in the stake, the other into a notch in the end of the spindle, like the spindle of a common box-trap; another heavy piece of wood was then placed one end on the ground, between two stakes, to keep it from rolling, the other on the top of the killer, to give force to the fall. When the animal touched the spindle to which the bait was fastened, both the killer and the stick placed on to reënforce it came down, and caught him between the killer and the piece on the ground.
In default of an auger, it could all be made with an axe, by using double stakes and strings, or withes. These were made larger or smaller, according to the size of the animal to be caught; they were surrounded with stakes, and covered on top with brush, to keep the animal from robbing them behind, or on top. For beaver, they set them in the paths where they went to the woods, cut a piece of wood, flat on the upper side, four inches wide, and bevelling on the under side, so that it would rotate, canting it down on one edge, put that edge under the end of the spindle, and strewed over it twigs and chips of red willow and beaver root, rubbed with medicine, and when the beaver put his mouth or paw on the board it canted, and, lifting the end of the spindle, sprung the trap.
For raccoons, they set them at the ends of hollow logs, and in the little runs that led down to the ponds and brooks; and for the otter, at the places where they rubbed when they came out of the water, and near their sliding places. For raccoons, they baited with frogs, and chips of bears’ and beavers’ meat, with honey dropped on it; and for otters, with fish which they caught through holes in the ice.