After a night passed in one of the loose-boxes and between two bear-skins, he rose early and started off to the woods with the three sons of the house, who had to clear some traps a few miles away. For some time their talk mystified him, for they continually spoke of the animal for which the snares were set as le chat. He knew that wild cats were almost unknown so far north, and the tame ones could scarcely be so plentiful in a pine-forest as to need trapping. He asked for an explanation, which his companions laughingly gave.
“We call him that because it is easier to say than le loup cervier; many of the French trappers call him le lynx. It is only lately that we have taken the trouble to catch him.”
“How is that?”
“We must catch what the fur-dealers ask us for, sir. Just now, they tell us, the white people in the towns are very fond of wearing lynx-skin as part of their dress.”
When they arrived at the line of traps the Bavarian perceived that the Mohawks’ progressive notions extended 297 even to these, for they were steel gins bearing the trade-mark of a Montreal hardware firm. In all, ten well-grown lynxes were taken from the traps, which were reset and baited with fresh meat. Then the four hungry men sat down to their breakfast of cold meat, barley bread, and cider, and chatted gaily over it, finding far more rational matter that they could discuss in common than the average English gentleman would often find in conversation with three average English peasant-farmers. Yet Kohl, who had a healthy admiration for the fighting-animal in man, was becoming conscious of a certain melancholy as he looked at his companions. Of course, a Mohawk who went to church, paid his taxes, and sent his children to school was a more desirable neighbour than one whose merits were reckoned according to the number of human scalps in his possession; still, one could almost have wished——
He got no farther with these reflections, for, just then, something happened that upset all his fine theorising, and proved conclusively that there is something in the old saying about scratching a Russian and finding a Tartar. All in a moment the Indians dropped their cider-horns and sprang to their feet, shouting:
“Musquaw! Musquaw!”
It was almost the first native word he had heard, and it meant a black bear. Peering among the trees, he at length caught sight of a large animal hastily turning his back on them and preparing to beat a retreat. The Mohawks ran in pursuit like deerhounds, though all of them were over fifty years of age. Their 298 rifles—modern breech-loaders—lay to hand ready charged, but they left them behind; those were all very well for money-getting, but just now it was sport that they wanted. Kohl picked up his own gun and hastened after them. They were shouting at the top of their voices—and in Iroquoian; reviling the bear, daring him to turn on them, and taunting him with his cowardice; in a word, hunting as their fathers and grandfathers had done before them. Each had slipped a formidable-looking hatchet from his belt, and now, as they came up with the fugitive, the youngest brother dealt him a blow across the haunches that made him stop and bellow with pain.
As a rule, the musquaw is a perfectly harmless beast if left alone; but, when he turns to bay, he is as ferocious and almost as strong as a grisly. Maddened and almost maimed, the great brute now reared, and so suddenly, that the eldest Indian, who had been aiming a similar blow to his brother’s, lost his balance and fell with his head actually touching the beast’s back as he rose on his hind feet. But this was only matter for laughing; he was up again in a second, and striking for the back of the bear’s head, while his brothers sprang backwards or sidewards with terrier-like activity, dodging his outspread claws and awaiting an opportunity to bring him down with a blow across his snout.
Kohl had now reached the scene of the combat, and took up a position whence he could easily cover the enemy with his rifle, which he had just loaded with ball. But the Mohawks wanted no such help as that.