One in particular fixed our attention, as it afforded an illustration of trapper life under peculiar circumstances.
Chapter Thirty Seven.
Hare Hunting and Cricket Driving.
The two trappers, in company with two others of the same calling, were on a trapping expedition to one of the tributaries of the Great Bear River, west of the Rocky Mountains, when they were attacked by a band of hostile Utahs, and robbed not only of the produce of their hunt, but their horses and pack-mules were taken from them, and even their arms and ammunition. The Indians could have taken their lives as well, but from the interference of one of the chiefs, who knew old Ike, they were allowed to go free, although in the midst of the desert region where they were, that was no great favour. They were as likely as not to perish from hunger before they could reach any settlement—as at that time there was none nearer than Fort Hall upon the Snake River, a distance of full three hundred miles. Our four trappers, however, were not the men to yield themselves up to despair, even in the midst of a desert; and they at once set about making the most of their circumstances.
There were deer upon the stream where they had been trapping, and bear also, as well as other game, but what did that signify now that they had no arms? Of course the deer or antelopes sprang out of the shrubbery or scoured across the plain only to tantalise them.
Near where they had been left by the Indians was a “sage prairie,” that is, a plain covered with a growth of the artemisia plant—the leaves and berries of which—bitter as they are—form the food of a species of hare, known among the trappers as the “sage rabbit.” This creature is as swift as most of its tribe, but although our trappers had neither dog nor gun, they found a way of capturing the sage rabbits. Not by snaring neither, for they were even without materials to make snares out of. Their mode of securing the game was as follows.
They had the patience to construct a circular fence, by wattling the sage plants together, and then leaving one side open, they made a “surround” upon the plain, beating the bushes as they went, until a number of rabbits were driven within the inclosure. The remaining part of the fence was then completed, and the rabbit hunters going inside chased the game about until they had caught all that were inside. Although the fence was but about three feet in height, the rabbits never attempted to leap over, but rushed head foremost against the wattles, and were either caught or knocked over with sticks.
This piece of ingenuity was not original with the trappers, as Ike and Redwood admitted. It is the mode of rabbit-hunting practised by some tribes of western Indians, as the poor Shoshonees and miserable “diggers,” whose whole lives are spent in a constant struggle to procure food enough to sustain them. These Indians capture the small animals that inhabit their barren country by ways that more resemble the instinct of beasts of prey than any reasoning process. In fact there are bands of these Indians who can hardly be said to have yet reached the hunter state. Some of them carry as their sole armour a long stick with a hooked end, the object of which is to drag the agama and the lizard out of its cave or cleft among the rocks; and this species of game is transferred from the end of the stick to the stomach of the captor with the same despatch as a hungry mastiff would devour a mouse.