"Well," said Hugh, "if you are trapping, you want to get to your traps just as early in the day as you can see. Many a man has saved a beaver by doing that. You see, a beaver often gets caught when it's going home just before daylight, and it takes him some little time to thresh around and twist his feet off."
"Why, of course, rising in the morning is all a habit," said Mr. Clifford. "It's just as easy to get up at one hour as it is at another. In India, where, on account of the heat, we slept through the middle of the day, we used to get up before light, always."
"Well, Henry," said Hugh, "Jack tells me that there are lots of bear sign down at the pen, and I reckon we better do down and see what happened there." They went down there, and even Hugh was surprised at the amount of sign they found. Not the smallest vestige of the beaver remained, and all about the stick which had been thrust through them the ground was dug up and rooted over, as if the bears had suspected that something was buried there.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "I don't know but we've got more of a contract here than we reckoned on. We'll have to get a fresh bait for to-morrow night, sure. For as many bears as there are here, we ought to be able to catch two or three of them. You run down to the camp and bring up those sticks for the trigger and spindle, that I took down last night, and we'll fix them and set the trap now."
Jack brought the sticks, and some little time was devoted to arranging the trap. The beaver carcass was put on the end of the spindle and firmly tied there; a stake was driven into the ground just behind the bait, to hold in place the point of the spindle. A branch an inch long, standing out from the side of this stake at right angles to it, was smoothed so that the spindle, if pulled on, might easily slip out from under it. Then the other end of the spindle was rested on the bed-stick projecting out six or eight inches toward the mouth of the pen.
"Now," said Hugh, "this fall-log is heavy, and we've got to handle it pretty carefully. We don't want any of us to get caught in our own bear trap." He drove a stout stake into the ground just outside of the front one of the two stakes that were to guide the fall-log, and then, getting a long pole for a lever, the fall-log was lifted, the stake which had supported it was knocked away, and then the fall-log lowered until it was about four feet above the bait-stick. Then leaving Jones to hold the fall-log in position with the lever, Hugh went inside, and, resting one end of the trigger-stick on the portion of the spindle which projected beyond the bed-stick toward the mouth of the pen, he told Jones to lower the fall-log very slowly. Jones obeyed instructions, and after raising and lowering it several times, the fall-log and the spindle were held apart by the trigger-stick, and so delicately balanced that it looked to the boys almost as if a breath would disarrange them and bring the heavy fall-log down.
"There," said Hugh. "Now let's get out of this as quick as we can. I'm hungry and want something to eat." And indeed it was time that they should eat, for in their earnestness to set the trap the noon hour had long passed.