“I mean to skin him in the morning,” said John.
“Then you must put him in the camp; for if he lies there, nothing will be left of him in the morning but bones.”
“Why, will the wolves eat each other?”
“Eat each other? Yes, just as quick as they’ll eat anything else. There’s no Christianity in ’em. They will dig up a dead body in a graveyard.”
“But how shall I get him?” said John, who, after this revelation, did not feel much like trusting himself far from the fire.
Uncle Isaac seized a brand, and, waving it in the air, the wolves retreated, and John took the dead wolf by the hind legs, and drew him to the fire.
After replenishing both fires with fuel, they lay down again, and were soon fast asleep, except John and Charlie, from whose eyes the events of the evening and the howling of the wolves had effectually banished sleep until near daybreak, when they too sank into a sound slumber.
They now broke into the other beaver houses, and, as the weather grew warmer, tapped the maples, procured sap to drink, and made sugar; and, as they could boil but little in their camp-kettle, they froze the sap. This took the water out, and reduced the quantity, leaving that which remained very sweet, and so much less in quantity to boil down.
CHAPTER XXIII.
BREAKING CAMP.
“There are just two things,” said Uncle Isaac, “for us to make up our minds about. We’ve had great luck. We’ve got two silver-gray foxes, which is an uncommon thing. I lay it to the honey that I fried the bait in, the bloody neck of a moose that I dragged along the trail, and the earth I got from Joe Bradish’s fox-pen. We’ve taken a great many beavers, coons, minks, and otters, and the fur is all prime, for we didn’t begin till the fur was good. It will be good about three weeks longer, till May. If we go now, we can get out of the woods to the nearest road, and haul our furs on the sledges, by going twice over the road, or we can stay and trap as long as the fur is good, build canoes, and, by carrying round the falls, take the furs and all our truck right to our own doors.”