Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

After camp had been made and supper eaten, Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son. I'm going up the creek a little way to see if I can see any sign of beaver or other fur. What are you going to do?"

"Well," said Jack, "I don't know; I think I'll go up this little valley through which this side creek comes and see whether I can see anything there."

"All right," said Hugh; "we'll get back here, then, before dark;" and they started on their different ways.

Hugh went slowly up the stream and before he had gone very far came to a place where the valley widened out and there were meadows on either side of the stream. Here was beaver work, and fresh. A dam across the stream held back the water until it was several feet deep, making a pond that was long and narrow, but not high enough to flood the meadows. Along the banks were willows on which the beaver had been working lately, and many freshly cut twigs and barked sticks were floating in the water. Hugh saw no beaver, but found abundant signs of them, and made up his mind that it would be well for them to stop here and trap for a day or two. There were mink sign along the stream, and at its head he saw fresh elk tracks, those of cows and calves. Going quietly through undergrowth he came at length to a place where the trees stood apart, and here suddenly he saw three cow elk, which a moment later saw him and crashed off through the trees, but at which he did not shoot.

Jack, on his part, had followed up the still narrower valley of the side stream. The mountains rose steeply on either hand, and to walk with any comfort he was obliged to keep either in the bed of the creek or close to it. On little sand bars by the stream he saw many tracks of small animals which he thought might be mink, and in one place where there was a deep pool he came upon what he believed to be the slide of an otter.

All along the stream dippers were feeding, the curious little slate-colored birds with which he had been so familiar in other parts of the mountains. Here they were as active as he had always seen them, flying up or down the stream or diving in the water or walking briskly about on the rocks, or, if for a moment they stayed in one place, making the curious bobbing or dipping movement from which, perhaps, the name dipper has been given them. They were singing now with a sweet, clear note that reminded Jack somewhat of the robin's song.

From time to time Jack stopped to watch these little friends, and then went on. He moved as quietly as he could, and for the most part the babble of the stream drowned the slight noises that he made, but, as bad luck would have it, as he was rounding a point of the stream and had to make a long spring to cross the water, he caught an alder stem on the other side, and it came away in his hand with a sharp crack. Instantly there was a crash in the brush just above him on the stream, and as he turned his head he saw a good-sized bear plunge across the stream and disappear into the undergrowth. He had no time to whirl around, and still less to throw his gun to his shoulder, and yet he wanted to shoot. He ran twenty or thirty steps up the hillside as hard as he could to a little open place from which he thought he might possibly see the game, but nothing was visible save the undergrowth and the trees, and he was reluctantly obliged to come down the slope without seeing the bear. What made him feel the worse about it was that he felt that it was his own carelessness that had made the noise that had startled the bear. If he had kept on in his silent, stealthy way he might have had the shot.

Very much disgusted and disappointed, he turned about and went down the valley again, reaching camp just as Hugh got there.

"Well, son, what luck?" said Hugh.