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

by George Bird Grinnell

"Now, son," he said, "try this meat, and see how you like it. Most of us think that kitten is pretty good food. Of course, it isn't like fat cow, or even like mountain sheep or elk, but to my mind it's quite as good as any bird or fish that there is."

For some time Jack's mouth was so full that he could not comment on the dinner, but, after a time, he declared in response to a question by Hugh, that the meat was "prime." "But what is this queer, half-bitter taste that it has, Hugh?" he asked.

"Why, son, that's extract of cottonwood and willow bark. Don't you know that is what the beaver feed on, and, of course, the flesh tastes of it? This little fellow is not very strong, but I've sometimes eaten old beaver that was so bitter that you really didn't want to eat much of it."

"Well," said Jack, "this is about the tenderest meat that I've ever eaten, and I like the bitter flavor."

"Yes," said Hugh, "it's mighty nice, and then this fellow is so young that you don't have to mind the ribs at all; you can chew them right up and swallow them down."

"Well," said Jack, "I say it's prime, and I hope we'll have lots more beaver meat before we go in."

"No doubt we will," said Hugh; "but no doubt, also, it will not be as good as this has been. It's not every day that one gets a kitten beaver, and it's mighty poor policy to kill them. You see this little bit of a hide isn't worth anything, whereas, if the kitten had been allowed to grow a year more the hide would have been worth, maybe, four or five dollars. Now it isn't worth more than seventy-five cents."

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "if I had known that perhaps I wouldn't have shot it, but you see, I didn't know that kitten ought not to be killed, and if I had known about it I had no time to think."

"No," said Hugh; "it was all right to kill this one, but I'm just telling you so that after this you'll know about kittens. We try always to set our traps so as to catch only the old beaver. Of course, Indians will sometimes tear down a dam and kill all the beaver in a pond, but then Indians haven't much idea of looking out for the future. I say, kill what old beaver you can and leave the young ones to grow up. If you don't get them next year somebody else will, and we'll hope that whoever does will have sense enough to spare the young ones."

When dinner was over and the dishes washed, Hugh told Jack to bring him the little beaver's hide and the willow hoop that he had made, and then after cutting holes all around the margin of the hide, he took a string and passed it through one of the holes, around the hoop, through another hole and around the hoop again, and so went all around the skin until it was fairly and evenly stretched on the willow hoop.