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

by George Bird Grinnell

When Jack had brought his lariat, it was knotted about the hind-legs of the bear, and then after tightening the cinches of his saddle, Jack mounted, took a double turn of the rope around his saddle horn, and then slowly started Pawnee up the valley while Hugh took hold of the bear's hide to keep it in place. The carcass began to slide off the hide, and Hugh with his knife made two or three last cuts, which freed the hide from the carcass, and presently the hide lay there spread out flesh side up. After the rope had been untied from the carcass, the two went over the hide with their knives scraping away all the fat that they could get off, and presently Hugh declared that it was in shape to be spread and dried.

"We're likely to have some trouble getting this on a pack, because, of course, no horse likes to pack a bear hide, but I guess we can do it all right. Instead of taking it back to where we left the horses, let's spread it out here and bring one of the animals down here and load it on him."

"All right," said Jack, "and now let's get back to camp. I feel like having a wash."

Returning to the horses it took some little time with water, mud, and sand—for, of course, the soap was in the pack and they did not want to open it—to cleanse themselves of the grease from the bear. The smell of the beast they could not get rid of, and this gave them some trouble when they were catching and loading their animals, for the horses snorted and jumped and pulled back when they caught the scent of either of the two. However, at last they had their lunch, and then loaded their horses, and went down to the bear skin.

As Hugh had said, the matter of loading it was not easily performed. It was first lashed up into a secure package, to be put on as a top pack, and then the lightest loaded of the horses was brought up to it. The horse did not like it a bit, but at length by blindfolding him with a coat tied about his head, he stood quietly enough for Hugh to place the load on his back, but Jack was obliged to hold the rope, for the horse, notwithstanding his blindfolding, kept stepping about and was very uneasy.

Hugh managed to tie the skin on so that it would stay, and then Jack, going around to the off side, helped to put on the lash rope firmly. When they took off the coat, however, and the horse saw what was on his back, he bucked fiercely all over the meadow, and would have stampeded the other horses when he passed near them if it had not been that Hugh and Jack, both mounted, had a firm hold on their ropes.

At last the horse became tired of bucking, but its fears were not quieted, for every little while it would look back at its pack and snort and rush here and there, much afraid of the load it was carrying.

"That bear skin is going to make us a lot of trouble, son," said Hugh, "and the sooner we get it dried so that some of the smell will be gone out of it, the better it will be for us. Let's go on now to the edge of that beaver meadow and camp there. We'll have to spend a day or two drying this hide and getting the horses used to it."

For the rest of the day they had much trouble with their horses, for every time the trail crooked around so that the odor of the bear skin was carried to the other horses of the train, there was a scattering, and Jack had to round up the animals and bring them back again.

It was nearly dark when they finally camped at a little spring at the border of the beaver meadow, where a little clump of cottonwood trees gave shelter and wood for the campfire.