"Well," said Hugh, "I don't care very much to be feeding these bears, but it's less trouble for us to skin here than to carry the beaver to camp. Now these bears are our meat, son, if we want them. We can build a trap and catch the old one, or we can come here and sit around and watch for them, and kill them with our guns. I am inclined to think that would be the better way, because it's a whole lot of trouble to build a bear trap, and we haven't got the tools, and we haven't got the timber right here. At least," he said, looking around, "no such timber as I would like."
"Well," he went on, "let's skin our beaver and then to-morrow we'll see what has happened."
To-day Jack found that skinning a beaver was much easier than it had been yesterday. He learned how to grip and turn over the hide, and how to make his knife strokes longer and more effective. This day Hugh had not forgotten to bring the little skinning knives of which he had previously spoken. It was not yet noon when the work of skinning was ended and they had wiped the grease off their knives and hands and tied the bundle of fur behind one of the saddles.
"It goes better to-day, son, doesn't it?" said Hugh.
"Why, yes," replied Jack; "that wasn't such very hard work. I could skin another beaver and not mind it greatly."
"Well," said Hugh, "instead of doing that let us go out here and cross the creek and go down on the the other side and set these other traps. Do you want to take any of this meat along? There's one young beaver there that might be good and tender, but as far as I'm concerned, I'd just as soon have antelope meat."
"So would I, Hugh," said Jack. "But now look here, I'm thinking about those bears. Can we not fix this meat here in some fashion so that they can't carry it away, or if not that, can't we fix it so that it will give some trouble, and they'll make more sign than they did yesterday?"
"Why, yes," said Hugh, "we can stake it down and maybe that will make them stop and eat it here. We can hang it up in a tree, and that will make them stay around here and get them used to the place."
Jack smiled at Hugh's joke, and then proposed that they should hang one of the beaver up in a tree out of reach of the bears.