Thus provided the hunter, more frequently alone but sometimes accompanied by two or three others, set out for the mountain streams, as early in the spring as the melting ice would enable him to commence operations against the beaver.
Arrived on his hunting ground he carefully ascends some creek or stream, examining the banks with practiced eye to discern any sign of the presence of beaver or of any other animal whose fur would prove valuable. If a cotton-wood tree lies prostrate he examines it to see if it has been cut down by the sharp tooth of the beaver; and if so whether it has been cut down for food or to furnish material for damming a stream. If the track of a beaver is seen in the mud, he follows the track until he finds a good place to set his steel trap in the run of the animal, hiding it under water and carefully attaching it by a chain to a bush or tree, or to some picket driven into the bank. A float strip is also made fast to the trap, so that should the beaver chance to break away with the trap, this float upon the surface, at the end of a cord a few feet long, would point out the position of the trap.
"When a 'lodge' is discovered the trap is set at the edge of the dam, at the point where the animal passes from deep to shoal water. Early in the morning the hunter always mounts his mule and examines the traps. The captured animals are skinned, and the tails, which are a great dainty, carefully packed into camp. The skin is then stretched over a hoop or frame-work of osier twigs and is allowed to dry, the flesh and fatty substance being carefully scraped off. When dry it is folded into a square sheet, the fur turned inward, and the bundle, containing from about ten to twenty skins, lightly pressed and corded, is ready for transportation.
"During the hunt, regardless of Indian vicinity, the fearless trapper wanders far and near in search of 'sign.' His nerves must ever be in a state of tension and his mind ever present at his call. His eagle eye sweeps around the country, and in an instant detects any foreign appearance. A turned leaf, a blade of grass pressed down, the uneasiness of wild animals, the flight of birds, are all paragraphs to him written in nature's legible hand and plainest language. All the wits of the subtle savage are called into play to gain an advantage over the wily woodsman; but with the instinct of the primitive man, the white hunter has the advantage of a civilised mind, and thus provided seldom fails to outwit, under equal advantages, the cunning savage.
"Sometimes the Indian following on his trail, watches him set his traps on a shrub-belted stream, and passing up the bed, like Bruce of old, so that he may leave no track, he lies in wait in the bushes until the hunter comes to examine. Then waiting until he approaches his ambush within a few feet, whiz flies the home-drawn arrow, never failing at such close quarters to bring the victim to the ground. For one white scalp, however, that dangles in the smoke of an Indian lodge, a dozen black ones at the end of the hunt ornament the camp-fire of the rendezvous.
"At a certain time when the hunt is over, or they have loaded their pack animals, the trappers proceed to their rendezvous, the locality of which has been previously agreed upon; and here the traders and agents of the fur companies await them, with such assortments of goods as their hardy customers may require, including generally a fair supply of alcohol. The trappers drop in singly and in small bands, bringing their packs of beaver to this mountain market, not unfrequently to the value of a thousand dollars each, the produce of one hunt. The dissipation of the rendezvous, however, soon turns the trapper's pocket inside out. The goods brought by the traders, although of the most inferior quality, are sold at enormous prices. Coffee twenty and thirty shillings a pint cup, which is the usual measure; tobacco fetches ten and fifteen shillings a plug; alcohol from twenty to fifty shillings a pint; gunpowder sixteen shillings a pint cup, and all other articles at proportionately exhorbitant prices.
"The rendezvous is one continued scene of drunkenness, gambling, brawling and fighting, so long as the money and credit of the trappers last. Seated Indian fashion around the fires, with a blanket spread before them, groups are seen with their 'decks' of cards playing at 'euchre,' 'poker,' and 'seven-up,' the regular mountain games. The stakes are beaver, which is here current coin; and when the fur is gone, their horses, mules, rifles and shirts, hunting packs and breeches are staked. Daring gamblers make the rounds of the camp, challenging each other to play for the highest stake—his horse, his squaw if he have one, and as once happened his scalp. A trapper often squanders the produce of his hunt, amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of hours; and supplied on credit with another equipment, leaves the rendezvous for another expedition which has the same result, time after time, although one tolerably successful hunt would enable him to return to the settlements and civilised life with an ample sum to purchase and stock a farm, and enjoy himself in ease and comfort for the remainder of his days.
"These annual gatherings are often the scene of bloody duels, for over their cups and cards no men are more quarrelsome than your mountaineers. Rifles at twenty paces settle all differences, and as may be imagined, the fall of one or other of the combatants is certain, or, as sometimes happens, both fall at the same fire."[H]
