The Timber Treasure

by Frank Lillie Pollock

His mind recurred to the fur trade. By lying in wait along the creek he might shoot an odd mink, but this was a most uncertain and wasteful method. He thought of figure-four traps, of deadfalls.

These are seldom very successful where fur animals are shy and much trapped, but in this unfrequented spot he thought they might work. He split up one of the pine boards and whittled out half a dozen sets of figure-fours, which would fall to pieces at a touch of the baited spindle.

Half a dozen whiskey-jacks had been squalling about the roof of the barn for hours, and he shot one of them for bait. He set two of his deadfalls beside the tiny creek in the beaver meadow, where there were muskrat signs, building a little inclosure of stakes and logs with a heavy timber supported over the entrance on the figure-four spring. Going through the woods to the river, he set four more traps along the shore, close to the driftwood where the minks were sure to pass.

It was growing late in the afternoon, and he was hungry again. Remembering that he had nothing eatable but half a rabbit, for which he felt no appetite, he made a circuit through the woods in the hope of picking up a grouse. He did start up several; three of them perched on a tree and sat in full view, craning their necks stupidly to look at him, but he managed to make a clean miss, and they went off with a scared roar of wings. With a shot-gun he might have bagged half a dozen; but no more sitting shots presented themselves, and he came back to the barn empty-handed.

The sky had clouded over, and a raw April wind blew. Twilight fell drearily over the bare woods and the black spruces. Tom cooked his rabbit and ate it without any great relish. He was very tired, and felt once more filled with indecision and distress. More than ever it seemed madness to attempt to remain in this place indefinitely. To make the discomfort worse, the wind changed so that it drove the fire toward the barn. He had to put it out, lest the building should catch fire. Vainly he longed for an interior hearth so that he could heat the place, but he got into his bunk, piled all his blankets and spare clothing over himself, and shivered for some time, but eventually went to sleep.

He awoke about sunrise, feeling stiff and cold. Once more he felt that he had been a fool to stay here even as long as this. Already he might have been back in Oakley, headed for Toronto.

He built up the fire and warmed himself. There were some scraps of rabbit left from last night, and he ate them morosely, feeling that he had carried a diet of rabbit about as far as it would go. This morning he would have to pick up something better; afterward he would plan his retreat to Oakley, and when he had finished the scanty meal he took up his rifle and started toward the river, where he had set the deadfalls.

He had a stroke of luck at once. Coming quietly out by the stream he espied four ducks on the water close to the shore. It was not more than twenty yards, and he knocked over one, and missed with a second bullet; then the birds went splashing and squawking away through the air.

He retrieved the duck with a long stick, hung it on his belt and walked up the shore. The first of his traps was untouched. The second was sprung and the bait taken, but the animal had eluded the falling log. Tom reset it, rebaiting it with the head of the duck. He had not much faith in his deadfalls, but the next one was down and had a muskrat in it—a dark, sleek pelt, quite flattened with the weight of the heavy timber.

Tom was unreasonably elated over his prize. It showed that his traps were good for something after all, and it ran through his mind that he might set a whole string of them up and down the river. He skinned the musquash and put the pelt in his pocket; then he walked slowly up the shore, on the lookout for more ducks.