Never leave your axe out doors all night. Intense cold makes it exceedingly brittle, most likely the first knot you put it into will cause a gash in the blade and an axe is an essential part of a trapper's outfit, and impossible to replace when far from settlements.
Never dry your snowshoes near the fire, but plant them some distance away to be dried by the frost. The fire acting on the dampness in the knitting cooks the fiber of the leather and causes the shoe to give out before its proper time.
Never, in very cold weather, carry your gun by the barrel; if occasion caused you to fire it off, the chances are the barrel will burst at the place where your hand heated the iron.
Never after wringing out your wet moccasins place them near the fire to dry, but scrape out any remaining moisture with the back of the sheathe knife, stuff each shoe with brush and hang at back of camp to dry gradually. The brush keeps the shoes extended and permits the heat to permeate to all parts.
Never put on the same shoe on the same foot two days in succession. The shoe will wear much longer and retain its shape by interchanging.
In wearing moose or deer skin shoes begin by wearing them wrong side out until almost worn through, then turn, and you have the grain side of the leather. Thus your shoe will last almost twice as long.
Never travel without an extra undershirt and a spare pair of socks; with the trunk and feet dry and warm there is some chance of salvation for a man if he was unfortunate enough to break through the ice or obliged to travel through the wet in the spring. The days may be mild enough but the nights are cold.
Never cut your night's wood from low ground bordering on water. It will cause you untold annoyance by continually shooting off live coals and sparks all over your blankets.
In selecting your camping place have your fire slightly higher than your bed. Most places, (unless on rock), are eaten away by action of the fire, and by the time you turn in you will have the fire on a level.
Never consider your work complete until you have an armful of fine cut up dry wood or a supply of birch bark handy. From excessive fatigue you may oversleep and wake thoroughly chilled. In such an instance you want a quick bright fire, no fumbling about trying to ignite some half burnt sticks.
Never leave any excess of firewood lying on the snow to become sodden on the ground and covered by the following winter's snow, thus to be useless to you or anyone else passing that way. A few moments in the morning before taking the trail will stand it on end under some tree and it is good for future use.
Never underestimate your wood requirements for the night. It is better, yes, much better, to have a surplus than to turn out before daylight to replenish your fire.
Never, if you are dragging a toboggan or sleigh, leave it flat on its track where your day's march ends, but turn it on its side, if loaded, or stand it up, if empty, and scrape or rub off any frost on the bottom or runners. The next day it will slide easy, otherwise the empty sleigh alone will be a load.
Never put your game or fish to cook in boiling water. Place it, in preference, in cold and bring to the boil, then let it simmer till done.
I have seen the Indians on a very cold night, when on the trail, make a new fire where we had been sitting and spread our brush and blankets on the old fire place. The ground being thawed out our brush retained considerable warmth till morning.
Never, in the winter, make your camp fire directly under a large snow laden tree. The heat of the fire will melt the snow and the dropping water cause much annoyance and discomfort, or high winds may spring up before morning and send the snow about your fire and camp.
Never carry all your supply of matches about your person, have a few, even though only a half dozen, in some damp-proof article amongst your blankets. A very good receptacle if you have not a water proof box, is an empty Pain Killer vial. See that it is thoroughly dry, drop in your few matches and cork tightly.
This is for an emergency and can be carried about for months or years, and only opened under necessity, when perhaps one dry match will save your life.
Never leave your gun loaded in camp! The iron draws the dampness and imparts it to the cartridges. Next day they may prove slow fire or not explode at all. Have your cartridges handy if you will, but really there is no necessity. The days of wolves and savage Indians are past and in most parts of the "wild" there is nothing to molest man.
One other axiom I will adduce and not prefix it with the negative "Never," because it is not always possible to adhere to this principle.
It is not generally known that the position one assumes when making one's bed has a great deal to do with getting a restful night's repose. When possible lie with your head to the north. The magnetic earth currents flow from the north, and thus from your head down through your body. The tired feeling you had when retiring has all flowed out through your feet before morning.
This fact may appear absurd to a person not giving the subject sufficient thought, but it is on the same principle as a person stroking your hair downwards. The result is quieting and soothing, but if he rubs it the contrary way it irritates and is hurtful.
I have proved the truth of this assertion many times during my nights on the trail. I have purposely rolled in my blanket with my head to the south, and arose the following morning, unrested, and my body "broken up."
The foregoing may be and is rather disjointed, because I have penned each subject as they came to my mind, but the reader may rest assured they are worth memorizing and were learned by the writer during long years of hardships.
Suppose your canoe has been turned over on the beach all night, never launch it in the morning without first thoroughly examining the bottom from end to end. If there are rabbits or rats about, the place of a greasy hand is enough to draw them, and they will gnaw a lot of boat for very little grease.
This might be overlooked in the hurry of getting away, and the canoe either sink under you or sufficient water enter to damage your things.
Once my chum and I were making our way up river with our supplies. Amongst the provisions was a half barrel of pork. When camping the first night we left the pork near the overturned canoe. The rest of our outfit we carried up to our camp on the top of the river bank, thinking nothing would touch a solid hardwood barrel.
Well, in the grey morning, when we went to get water for our coffee we found the staves in shooks and the bricks of pork scattered about the gravelly beach. Rabbits had cut the hoops and the barrel had fallen to pieces. The rest was easy to the rabbit — not to us.
If you are a lone hunter never travel in summer without an extra paddle. You may lug this about all season and never require it but once, but that once you will be glad you have it.
Often when approaching game it is expedient to drop the paddle quietly in the water when taking up your gun. In the stillness of the wild, the noise of placing the paddle inboard is sufficient to scare away the game and the chance is lost. With a spare paddle at hand the hunter can quickly pursue the wounded game or paddle back and pick up the dropped paddle.
If you have a chum a second paddle is not necessary, as he can either forge the canoe ahead or back her to where you dropped yours.
Never talk or make unnecessary noise while hunting. Old hunters never do. It is only about the camp fire they talk, and even there always in a low tone of voice.
Old hunters communicate to one another all that is necessary by a shake of the canoe, a nod of the head or motions of the hands.
When portaging at a carrying place never when you get to the other end, put the canoe down at once, but let the man in front first scan carefully all about each side of the lake or river as far as the eye will carry. Something might be on the surface, standing in the shallows, or in the edge of the bush, which the noise of putting down the canoe would frighten away.
If you wish to avoid the dew of the morning, camp at the upper end of a carrying place, i. e., rapid, but if you wish to have a refreshing slumber camp at the foot of the rapid, have your head up stream and pointing to the north if possible.
Never push on and camp on the border of some small stagnant lake, merely to add a little length to your day's trail. Better camp this side and have living water for your cooking purposes.
If you were hunting in the fall in a beaver country and watching to shoot them in the evening:
Never, if it is a big lodge, fire at the first or even the second beaver that breaks water. If you do, good-bye to the others for that night. It is better to allow the first and second to swim away along shore to their wood-yards unmolested. The next to make its appearance will most likely be one of the old ones. This kill if you can, and then paddle slowly in the direction the first has taken. The chances are you will meet them coming back or see them ashore cutting wood.
See that your two or three traps are in good order, and leave the lake for your camp before darkness sets in.
Your camp should be half a mile away and to the leaward of the beaver lake.
In the spring of the year beaver begin to swim early in the afternoon and take to their lodge late in the morning. In the autumn when the nights are long they break water late and are not to be seen after sunrise next morning.
If you see two beaver at one time swimming and shoot one, leave it floating on the water. The chances are the second one will make a short dive, and you want to be ready with your gun when he comes up. I have often got one with each barrel this way.
By shooting in the evening and leaving three traps set I have cleaned out a lodge of seven beaver in an evening and a night, from 4 P. M. to 7 A. M. next morning, and this with only a boy of ten years old for a companion.
The hardest part was in packing them and my canoe out over five carrying places. But, oh! when the bunch was at the post what recompense, all those fine, rich furs and the luscious and sustaining meat, with a roasted tail now and again as a side bite.
Now penning these lines in my last camp in a town of ten thousand inhabitants, how my mind longs for one more season in the bush, but, alas! I fear it may never be.
The island of Anticosta, lying in the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, runs parallel with the main land on its north shore and about twenty-five miles distant from it. Notwithstanding the close proximity to the continent and the straits, some winters blocked with ice fields, the martens on this island are peculiar and distinct in this manner, that almost without exception the forepaws and the end of the tail are tipped with white hair.
I traded one year several hundred pelts of Anticosta marten and with one or two exceptions they all showed this distinction from those we got on the north shore or mainland. I found this white ending of extremities even amongst the bears and foxes, and in some instances with the otter. Otherwise the marten are as well furred and as rich and deep in color as the far-famed Labrador ones.
Of bears there are on the island both black and brown; the latter are of immense size and very savage. One skin I got measured seven feet broad by nine feet long and showed the marks of no fewer than eleven bullet holes in his hide. The man from whom I purchased the skin told me he met the monster while traveling along the sea beach and fired at him. The bear dropped, but in a moment arose to his feet and rushed for the hunter. Fortunately there was a high rock near by, up which the man clambered with his gun, out of reach of the infuriated beast and from this "Coin de advantage" Arsenault loaded and fired round ounce balls into the bear until he was dispatched.
While on this trip I secured two of the finest and purest silver grey fox skins I ever handled. It is not generally known that a pure silver fox is much rarer than black or black silver. What I mean by pure silver is a fox that is silvered from the very head right down to the white tip of the tail. The majority of so-called silver foxes are black from the head to a third of the way down the back; a part of the body and rump alone being silvered.
In the Hudson's Bay Company trading posts, foxes are graded when purchased under the following names: black, black silver, silver grey, black cross, dark cross, ordinary cross, (first cousin to red) bright red, light red, white. I am aware that to make this list complete blue and grey foxes are wanting, but as they are only traded in one or two of the Company's posts and I was never at either, I will say nothing about them, but of the above grades and colors of foxes I have traded and trapped many.
A black cross is so very near a silver that it is only a savant that can tell the difference. A black cross has yellow hairs growing inside the ears and a patch of yellow near each fore leg, whereas a silver has none. Unscrupulous trappers very often try to get over these giving-away marks by plucking the hairs out of the ears and by greasing and smoking the side patches.
The first thing a trader does when a doubtful skin is offered is to look into the ears; if the hairs are wanting, he breathes on his hand and gently passes it down over the side. If the hand is blackened this is a proof number two and the smart "Alec" is found out.
Coming back to Anticosta; forty years ago the privilege of hunting was leased by the then owner of the seigniory to a man from Quebec, who each autumn repaired to the island with four or five men who hunted on shares, Mr. Corbett, supplying food, traps and ammunition, got a certain per cent. of the furs each caught.
They laid their small schooner up in a sheltered bay and Corbett used to cook and sweep the shanty while his men hunted and trapped.
Wrecks used to occur nearly every year of some late lumber-laden sailing vessel and in the spring, after the hunt was over, Corbett and his men would load their schooner with copper and iron from the hulls and sail for Quebec in June when the moderate summer winds had begun.
Five or six years ago M. Menier, the French chocolate king, purchased the island from the Seignorial heirs and has converted it into a game reserve. He has cut road, built wharfs and made many other improvements and is trying to acclimate animals that were not found on the island, such as moose, Virginia red deer, buffalo, beaver, etc.
A resident governor lives on the island the year around and has a steamer of a couple of hundred tons at his command that plies between the island and Quebec, as necessity requires. M. Menier, with a party of friends, comes from France each summer and passes a month on the island fishing and shooting. There are three salmon rivers, one where the fish are especially large and numerous.
After purchasing the island M. Menier secured from the Canadian Government the right to a three-mile belt of water, so when the owner is on "Anticosta" he is actually lord and master of all that he surveys.
In theForest and Streamof Feb. 9 I have read the article written by H. de Puyjalon on the pekan or fisher. Mr. de Puyjalon appears to me to have attempted writing upon a subject in which he was very little versed and with no data upon which to base his assertions. As a matter of fact, prior to about the year 1860, the fisher or pekan was an animal unknown to the trappers on the north shore and Labrador, east of the Saguenay, and it was only after that year that an odd one was trapped in that lower country. In fact, when first the fisher made its appearance the Indians had no name for it, but after it became better known they adopted the Algonquin name it now bears. When an Indian, in the early sixties, was fortunate enough to have one in his pack he mentioned it as a big marten.
For many years the Saguenay River appeared to have been the boundary line for moose, red deer and pekan, none being known on the east side, while fairly numerous on the west bank. As the fisher was never very plentiful on the Labrador, and when found was only in the wooded part, it is not strange that a person of Mr. de Puyjalon's sedentary habits should have trapped only two.
I lived within hearing distance (that is, courier's reports) of Mr. de Puyjalon, while that gentleman resided on the coast, and apart from hearing that he set a fox trap or two about his shanty, never heard him mentioned as what we would call a trapper.
In his article he gives the pekan the credit of showing considerable cunning and finesses. As a matter of natural history they have no more of this than a marten, and will bungle into an ordinarily made dead-fall in the same way. The only thing to do when fisher are known to be about a line of marten traps is to make a larger sized house for him and extra heavy weight to keep him down when caught.
That the fisher decreases in number is quite contrary to facts. According to the last London sales of mixed furs in September, fisher stood at 4,926, in 1893 4,828, and in 1883 4,640, showing that they have increased slightly. In some parts of the country they stand in the returns about equal to the marten exported. I remember this very plainly, for at the time it struck me as peculiar. I was in charge of an out-post on Lake Superior. Our returns were principally beaver, foxes and lynx, very few marten, and in that year I had at the close of trade 96 marten and 96 fisher. This was impressed on my memory as being a strange coincidence, because the post I had been previously stationed at turned out over two thousand marten to eight or ten fisher. The prices for fisher in the Canadian market vary but little and we never have fluctuations as in silver foxes and marten. The skins are little used in any country except Russia and China, where they are used chiefly by the rich as coat linings. As they have a tough skin, and when prime a deep, rich fur, it is a wonder — since they are comparatively few on the market — that they do not command a better price.
The resort of the pekan is principally along the mountain ranges, never in the black spruce or flat barren country of the table land or to the north of it. Their food consists of rabbits, partridges, mice, squirrels and fruit when in season. When the mountain ash berries are plentiful and hang late in the autumn, both the fisher and the marten are difficult, if not impossible, to trap, as there is no meat lure you can bait with, that will induce them to leave the berries.
In a year of scarcity of fruits, when the fisher has to depend on his own adroitness in securing his food, I have read the signs and seen where one has been very persistent in running down a rabbit, the chase being up and down, in and out, until bunny was overtaken, killed and eaten.
It is only in the far back country that the once plentiful beaver are to be found at the present day, and though a description of one of the modes the Indians adopt in killing them may be of no practical use to the present generation of hunters on the fringe of civilization, it will at least be interesting to them and remembered by some old-timers. Chiselling, or trenching, beaver, as it is sometimes called, is yet followed by the interior Indians, and when conditions are favorable, is a most expeditious way of piling up a whole lodge.
The writer in his young days has many a time accompanied the Indians on these hunts, and the description of my last participation in this exciting mode of hunting I will endeavor to explain to the reader. I found a large lodge of beaver in a very small lake, probably a quarter of a mile long by one-eighth wide. It was so late in the fall that it was too near freezing to set traps in open water, and the appearance of the shore conveyed to my experienced eye that it could be chiselled to advantage. I therefore returned to the post and left the beaver undisturbed.
It was fortunate I did so, for the following night all the small ponds and lakes in the vicinity were ice-bound only to open again in six months. A few days after an Indian visited the post for an additional supply of ammunition and snaring twine, and I took the opportunity to enlist his services to kill my beaver. I offered him two pounds of tea for a day's work at the lake. Whether he killed the beaver or not, he was sure of the tea. This he agreed to, and I immediately put together the necessary things so as to make an early start.
As the lake was only an hour's walk from the post we reached it about sunrise, and both knowing our business, set to work at once. The implements necessary for each man are a belt axe, an ordinary socket mortise chisel one and a quarter inch broad. This is handled (generally at the lake) with a peeled spruce sapling from six to seven feet long, and last but by no means least, is a good beaver dog, and almost any Indian dog is good for beaver, as they learn from the older ones and train themselves. I had two at the post and these, of course, accompanied us. The first thing to do is to visit the discharge of the lake. If this is dammed a trap must be set at the opening where the water escapes. This is the first precaution, so that if any beaver during the trenching process tries to escape down the creek he must pass over the trap and get caught.
Where the water of the lake and that of the creek is of the same level there is consequently no dam, and then the creek, at its narrowest part, has to be picketed from side to side. This is often a laborious job, as pickets have to be cut and carried to the creek, a cut three or four inches wide made in the ice and then the pickets driven down side by side, or very close to each other, so the beaver cannot possibly pass.
This work done to our satisfaction, our next point was the lodge itself. This we broke in from the top and all the sticks, mud, etc., we jammed down in the opening or exit. This is done to prevent the beaver returning once they have left the lodge. At several places around the lake the beavers have what the Indian call "washes." These are burrows they make beneath the surface, generally up under the roots of a large tree. They use them for breathing places and to retire to if disturbed at the lodge. They make these at any favorable spot where the conditions are suitable, and the "washes" vary in number from three to five up to twice that number.
The dog's share of the work is to travel around the lake and scent the beaver under the frozen bank. He is trained not to give tongue, he merely points and sets his head on one side, then the other. Both our dogs are now pointing and we hastened over to the spot. A hole is chisselled in the ice close to shore and a crooked stick inserted. This stick is cut at the commencement of the hunt, is about seven feet long, and has a natural curve, almost as much as a half moon. The end of the stick is moved about, it slips up under the bank; this is the entrance to the "wash." We cut the hole in the ice larger and then watch the water. If the beavers (or even one) are up in the bank there is a perceptible rise and fall of the water at the opening. We then set to work to fence in the entrance to the "wash" with sticks. This done, the ice is cut away inside the stakes, a couple of feet square.
All is now ready for the test. The Indian bares his arm up to the arm pit. He gets down on his knees over the hole and watches, while I go up a few feet from the bank and drive the chisel into the ground. This disturbs the beaver and he makes a mad drive to get out to the lake. The pickets bring him up, and while he is turning about, puzzled and bewildered, the Indian dashes his arm into the water and seizing the beaver by the hind leg gives one strong pull and lands him over his head. The fall on the ice stuns him momentarily, and before he can escape the Indian has dealt him a blow with the head of his axe. The young ones are generally the first killed, as two or three may be together in one "wash." The old ones, as a rule, give much trouble, as they vacate one "wash" for another at the approach of the hunter. Then there is nothing for it but to picket off each "wash" as found, and thus reduce the number of places for him to resort to.
A hunter with a practiced eye can tell pretty well by the appearance of the shores about a beaver lake if the "washes" are few in number or numerous and guides himself accordingly. If the lake has drained a foot or two since the ice took, it is useless to attempt to chisel, as the beaver can go ashore under the ice anywhere and breathe. In our case all circumstances were favorable; the water was full under the ice, all over, and the "washes" were very few and easily located.
By three o'clock in the afternoon we had the beavers all killed, two old and four young ones. We really had five by dinner time, so we lit a fire, boiled our kettle and let the last old one quiet down a bit while we ate our lunch. We got him at last in the last "wash," and I suppose knowing this was his last stand he would not attempt to leave the back part of the hole no matter how much I poked the chisel in about him. So while the Indian kept a close and alert watch at the mouth of the "wash," I made a large opening at the back and slipped in one of the dogs. In a moment beaver and dog were both out at the entrance fighting in the water. The beaver fastened his terrible teeth in the dog's lip. The Indian and I each managed to grasp a hind leg, a long pull and out came beaver and dog together. We had to force his teeth apart after killing him before the dog was free.
I mentioned in a previous article that I would at some future time tell of the part a beaver-dam enacts in the successful shooting of the beaver.
As I said, the beaver has to keep a jealous watch on the dam to preserve the proper height of the water at their lodge. They make nightly visits to see all is well, just as a faithful watchman goes his rounds of the factory over which he has charge.
Any sudden falling of water brings the beaver down post haste to the dam to repair the damage or leak. Often an otter is the cause of the trouble, as they sometimes bore a passage way under the discharge, thereby letting out a large quantity of water in a very short while.
The Indians, knowing this careful watchfulness of the beaver, use it to his destruction by purposely breaking a portion of the dam and hiding, await the coming of the little builders, shooting them at close range.
I cannot do better than to describe one of these shootings, in which I took part.
One of the principal things to observe is that the wind should be in the proper direction, i. e., from the lodge toward the dam. A day coming when the condition of the wind was favorable, we set off with our double-barrel guns, a tea kettle and some grub, and reached the discharge about 3 P. M.
The little pond was brimming full with the proper quantity of water, flowing out of the cut to insure a regular equality. The Indian studied all this, looked at the sun, and decided it was yet too early to cut the dam, and in the meantime we fixed a nice brush cache at different angles to the dam, wherein we were to sit and watch. About four o'clock the Indian hacked away at the discharge with a small pointed stick, prying several holes under and about it, and in a short time the creek below the dam became a highly turbulent stream, and then we retired to our bedded places and waited.
I might mention that the time of the year was about the tenth of October, a time when beaver are quite prime, in that north country.
We had to wait possibly an hour before the first beaver made his appearance. It was one of the parents, and judging by the speed at which he came down the pond, he must have been of turbine construction. One thing sure he was on a rush message, and wanted to get there quick. I saw the Indian's gun barrel move slightly, and when the beaver got within close distance he pulled on him, and in a few minutes the beaver lay awash close to the dam, where he was allowed to remain.
The next one that came in sight was a young one, and came my way. He met the same fate. The slight current dragged him also close to the dam, a few feet from his father or mother, as the case might be.
This double bagging was hardly over when another big one came around a point heading for the dam as the others had done. This fellow proved to be my meat also, and again a pause in the shooting.
The shadows of the evening were fast falling and we had almost given up hopes of seeing any others, when again we saw a far-off ripple of some animal swimming, and it proved to be another young one. This one took down the shore nearest to the Indian, and beat the water at his gun's shot.
The sport was becoming quite exciting, and I would have had no objection to continuing it longer, but the Indian arose and called across to me to gather up our beaver, having a large and a small one each, a very fair division.
He then set to work to repair the damaged dam as well as he could, and explained to me that the remaining ones would finish off the job when the fear was off of them.
The Indian said that amongst his tribe the hunters often used this mode of hunting, and what beaver was left unkilled they either trapped later on or trenched them out when the ice set fast. One thing I learned from that afternoon's hunt was that it was simple and successful, and I used the knowledge several times, in other years, to my advantage.
We had to pack those beaver through four miles of trackless bush, and each pack must have weighed ninety pound, and, as far as I remember, we rested only three times. I mention this because I saw in one of the letters that appeared in H-T-T, where a man mentions having killed a beaver that weighed fifty pounds, which was so heavy he had to drag it home.
I have heard of dragging a deer or hair seal, but never of a fur-bearing animal. I wonder what that man would have thought to see an Indian of a hundred and thirty-six pounds weight carry four beaver and his bark canoe on top, over a three-quarter mile portage without resting, and he did not even appear winded at the end. The beaver weighed in the neighborhood of one hundred and eighty pounds, and the bark canoe an easy sixty, but then they are inured to carrying heavy loads from childhood.
My companion and I were sitting late one afternoon at a beaver lake, waiting for the sun to get near the tree tops before pushing our canoe into the lake to watch for beaver. They generally break water near the lodge about sundown and swim along shore to cut their food, and one has usually a chance of a shot.
All at once we heard back in the bush a cracking and breaking of branches, readily understood as done by a large animal running through the underbrush at a high rate of speed. The noises came nearer and nearer, a little off to our right, and I grasped my double-barreled gun which lay beside me and waited events.
A few moments after we saw a large caribou break cover about one hundred yards to the right and spring into the lake. But what was that black object clinging to his neck? Surely some animal!
The caribou struck out as fast as it could swim, heading for the further shore, and we jumped into our canoe and gave pursuit. The keen eyes of the animal on the caribou's neck having detected us, it relinquished its hold, dropped off into the water and turned for the shore the caribou had left.
The canoe was immediately headed to cut off his retreat, and when within proper distance I shot it with one barrel and left it there dead on the surface of the lake, while we continued on our chase.
This diversion had taken our attention from the caribou, but now, when we had resumed the chase, we found the animal was getting through the water very slowly, and as we were paddling in its wake, we perceived the water at each side of the canoe was bloody. By the time we reached the caribou it was dead.
On examination we found the jugular vein had been cut by the fierce animal on its back, and it had bled to death, fleeing with what strength it had to the last drop of the poor thing's blood.
We threw a string over its horns and towed it back to the portage, picking up in passing our floating black animal, which proved to be a very large wolverine, carcajo or Indian devil, the beast going under all of these names with hunters and traders.
The carcajo, when he loads for deer, goes down to one of their runways, or on a road leading to a salt lick. He climbs a tree and gets out on some branch overhanging the track. Here he flattens himself out and waits. Yes, he is a record waiter. He can give points to even the girl who is waiting and watching.
Time is no object to him; his inwards may be shriveling up for want of food, but there he remains. Once he has taken up that position nothing but a deer will make him show the least sign of life. He is to all intents a part of the tree limb, and the knowledge that all things "come to him who waits" is strongly fixed in his devil brain.
The deer passes, he drops on to him like a rock. Should he strike too far back, his cruel claws grip his way up toward the neck, and there he settles himself, a fixture, and cuts away at the large veins till the poor deer bleeds to death.
As soon as the deer feels this foreign weight on his back the cruel teeth cutting into him, he at once runs into and through the thickest part of the forest trying to rub the incubus off his back. But the carcajo has the tenacity of the bulldog, and his own skin would be ripped and lacerated before he would let go his hold.
The deer, realizing this mad rush through the bush is useless, makes for the nearest water in the hope that this will rid him of his enemy. But vain hope, the wolverine is there to stop, and only opens his jaws when the deer is dead, or, as in my instance, through fear for his personal safety.
Our beaver hunt was spoilt for that night, so we moved back on the trail and camped. There we passed our time drying the deer's meat and skinning the Indian devil.
The amount of destructiveness contained in a full grown wolverine, or, as he is sometimes called, carcajo and Indian devil, is something past belief to any one who has not lived in the country in which they resort. The tales told by hunters and lumbermen of the doings of this strong and able beast would fill pages. Some of these, like fish stories, may be seasoned by a pinch of salt, therefore I will only jot down a few that I experienced personally in my trapping days.
Hunger cannot always be adduced as a reason for their thieving propensities, inasmuch as they will steal martens, rabbits and partridges out of traps and snares when they are full to repletion just out of pure cussedness, as it were, to make the owner of the traps and snares to use unseeming language.
When once a wolverine gets on a line of deadfalls the trapper has either to abandon his traps and seek new fields, or kill the mischievous animal, for even should the line be ten miles long the Indian Devil will destroy or put out of order each trap to the very end. Their favorite plan is to tear out the back of the trap. If they find a marten caught and they are not hungry, they will carry it off at right angles to the trail and bury it in the snow, or climb a tree and deposit it on a cross branch. I have found no fewer than three martens when visiting my trap road a day after the wolverine had passed.
Once when chum and I were off for a couple of nights from our main camp, on our return we missed a toboggan from in front of the shanty door. This was passing strange as no Indians were in the vicinity, nor had passed our way. Hunt as we did in every conceivable place did not produce the missing sled. It was only two years after when camping in the same place and felling a dry spruce for firewood that the toboggan and tree came to earth together. The mystery was solved, a wolverine had drawn it up in the top branches of the tree and left it.
I remember a laughable occurrence that took place once. Chum and I had a small log shanty on the edge of a big lake. This was our headquarters. Radiating from the shanty we had lines of traps to the four points of the compass and we often slept out a night, visiting and cleaning out the traps. Each used to take a line end, each slept for that night solitary in the wilds.
On our return from one of our trips we met on the edge of the clearing and when we got to our shanty we noticed things looked strange and yet we could not tell for a moment what it was. On opening the door things looked stranger still, for on the floor was a mixture of mostly all our belongings, flour, matches, moccasins, tobacco, soap and numerous other things and sifted over all was ashes.
One would think a hurricane had come down the chimney and blown everything loose, but we knew better. Some animal must have done this devastation and we could call that animal by his right name by reading his work. Yes, a wolverine had been there and we fell to calling him some appropriate names and as we went along, we invented other names which our cuss vocabulary did not possess.
During a momentary lull in our burst of passion, we heard a slight scratching under the table and there we found the worker of all the mischief. A blow of the axe finished him then and there and he was pulled out into the light. Our surprise was great to find most of the hair on his head singed off and he was blind in both eyes. Then we set to work to read the signs how it happened.
We found by our deduction that in the first place he had clambored up on to the roof and from there had entered by the wide mouthed chimney. Once in the shanty he had set to work to examine and investigate everything about, each in turn to be cast from him on the floor.
The very last thing to attract his attention was my chum's powder horn. It was one of those old-fashioned cow horns with a plug in the small end. There was at the time nearly half a pound of gun powder in it. With this bright and shining article "carajou" started to clambor up and out thru the chimney.
Alas! he held the butt end upwards. By dryness, I suppose, the plug dropped out and a fine stream of powder found its way to the center of our fireplace where a few coals must have yet kept fire. A flame shot up, an explosion followed, and down came the frightened, blinded beast. No doubt from agony and fear he crawled under the table where we found him and put an end to his misery.
Their legs are very strong and muscular and I have known them to break out of even a No. 4 Newhouse. When they will take bait a pretty sure way to get them is by "setting a gun," but this is dangerous work as some stranger might pass that way, and even to the person setting the gun, great care must be used.
As they are very seldom famished and therefore will not take bait, about the only thing for the trapper to do is to give him the "right of way," and the hunter to move to some other part of the country for a month or so. We call them the Indian Devil because he inhabits the Indian country, but the Indians themselves call them "Bad Dog," this being the lowest and meanest name their language supplies.
Many years ago, before the great River Moisie was resorted to by cod fishermen and others, the harbor seals used to come up the stream in great numbers for the purpose of bringing forth their young in its quiet upper pools. After staying with their young for a couple of weeks, the mother seals would return down the river, and a few days later the little baby seals would drift down with the current and be carried out to sea, there to hunt and grow big, and in their turn become father and mother seals and visit their native river.
Many a calm evening I have stood on the gallery outside the house and listened to the infant-like cry of the poor little seals as they drifted on the river past the post. One evening, toward the end of "the run" we heard one crying in a most pitiful and heart-rending way. Every now and then we could see the snow-white mite as he floated on the surface near mid-stream.
I got a large salmon scoop and joined the man on the beach. We waited till the seal had floated past us, then quietly pushed out the boat. The man headed obliquely down stream to come up with the baby from behind, while I took a position in the bow, ready to land it in the boat. In a few minutes we were up to him. The poor little deserted fellow was pawing about in the water much after the manner of a blind puppy and uttering plaintiff cries, startlingly like a real baby. I skipped the scoop well under him, and in a moment he was safely landed in the bottom of the boat.
I fixed up an extemporary feeding bottle, made of a piece of rubber tubing, a cork and an empty soda water bottle, which we filled with some nice warm milk. We got him comfortable on a sheepskin alongside the kitchen stove, and with a little instruction he very soon knew how to work his end of the tube. The warmth of the stove and the bottle of milk very quickly sent him into sweet forgetfulness.
My first intention was to keep him only a few days, until he got a little larger and stronger, and then let him continue his journey to the sea. But the little fellow became such a pet and evidently liked his surroundings so well that it would have been heartless in the extreme to send him away; so Jack, as the cook christened him, became one of the family, and grew and waxed strong, and followed me about between the buildings with his flopping gait in a most ridiculous manner.
In September, numbers of fine sea trout used to come in the river each tide and go out with the ebb. We placed a stand of old useless salmon nets near the last sand point to create a back-water, from which to fly-fish. Jack used to accompany me on these fishing tours, and he very soon came to understand what my whipping the water was for.
One day he wabbled down to the very edge of the river, gazed up and down and across the water, and the next instant dived in, with a greasy, sliding motion. The waters closed over him, and I paused in my pastime to see what would happen next. I looked about in all directions for Jack, but not a ripple disturbed the placid waters. He could not have been meshed in the folds of the net, because I would have seen the floats vibrate. So I stood there pondering, my thoughts partly perplexed and partly sorrowful for the possible loss of our pet.
All at once I heard heavy breathing almost at my feet, and looking down, there was Jack with a fine 3 1/2 lb. sea trout crossways in his mouth, which, on my calling his name, he deposited at my feet. Then you may be sure I petted the dear young fellow, and he seemed to understand that what he had done was appreciated by his master, for after rolling himself for a few moments on the sand he made another dive, and another, and another, always with the same successful results, and the best part of his fishing was that he only selected the largest and fattest fish. We went home, both very proud in our own way — Jack for having been made so much of, and I because of the useful accomplishment of my pet.
As long as the run of fish continued, Jack and I used to resort each day to the eddy. He brought the fish ashore and I put them in the basket. What we could not consume at the house, the cook salted for winter use. Yes, the winter was coming on, and the thought occurred to me several times what we would do with Jack. Jack, however, made no attempt to take his freedom and forsake us. On the contrary, he manifested greater affection for us all, and, as the days became shorter and the nights colder and longer in that northern latitude, he used to sleep for many hours on a stretch, huddled up with the dogs in the kitchen, only going out of doors for an occasional slide in the snow once or twice during the course of each day.
Even the long winter of the North comes to an end in time, and once again we had open water; the last-bound river was again free from ice, and Jack used to take long swims, but he always came back. Finally the run of salmon struck the river, and I took Jack down to the bight of the sandbars to fly him at bigger game than the trout. He made one or two dives and came ashore empty-mouthed. He saw there were no caresses for Jack, so he tried again.
This time his efforts were crowned with success, for he landed with a 12 lb. salmon struggling in his strong jaws. He received my pating and expressions of satisfaction with unbounded joy and seemed to know he had done something to be proud of, for he ambled up the sandbank and slid down to the water several times in rapid succession.
Soon it was the season for the seals to enter the river as in past years, and the Indians were shooting them from their canoes whenever they had a chance. Jack used to go so far afield now, probably trying to find the mother that had so shamefully deserted him last year, that we feared he might be shot by the Indians by mistake; so we tied a piece of blue worsted gartering about his neck to distinguish him from the other seals. But alas for the poor Knight of the Garter. One day Jack was out among the other seals off the mouth of the river, and in some way the blue garter must have been detached from his neck, for an Indian shot him.
The man brought him ashore and told us of the mishap. As soon as he handled him to put him in the canoe, he knew at once from the roughness of his coat it was poor Jack. And thus ended our intelligent and useful pet.
We buried him near the flagstaff and put up a board bearing the inscription "Jack."
Seeing a small shark brought ashore the other day by one of the salmon fishermen, who had found it rolled up in his net, put me in mind of an exciting adventure I had many years ago. Both at the east, as well as the west side of the mouth of the great River Moisie, sand banks run out to sea for a distance of two or three miles. These are covered at high tide, but being of almost a uniform height, the falling tide runs off of them in a very short space of time, and leaves them dry with the exception of some odd places where pools of water remain. The banks are dry the last two hours of the ebb and the first two hours of the flood tide.
The great river continually deposits on these sands such quantities of vegetable matter, that they are a resort for many kinds of small fishes; and numerous waterfowl come there at certain stages of the tide to feed on the fish.
I was only about eighteen at the time, and had gone out in a birch-bark canoe to shoot ducks on the banks. My companion, an Indian boy, even younger than myself in years, but several times older in experience, was to steer the canoe. The last words his father said to us before leaving, were, "Don't go too far out, or the 'Ma-thcie-ne-mak' will cut your canoe and eat you."
The sea that morning was as calm as a pond, and perfectly glassy from the strong May sun striking straight down on it. We had been out for a couple of hours, and had had pretty fair luck with sea-ducks and loons, and were just about starting for the shore before the tide left us dry on the banks. If such a thing had happened, it would have entailed on us the labor of carrying our canoe a mile or so to the beach, over soft yielding sand.
"We better go," the boy was saying when his words were cut short in his mouth. With the remains of that breath he screeched "Ma-tchie-ne-mak!" and started to paddle like one possessed. I admit that his fright was infectious, and coupled with the dread name of shark, it so quickened my stroke, that Hanlon's sixty-a-minute were very slow compared to the way I worked my paddle. I have read, and heard from old whalesmen, that as long as one kept the water churned up, there was no danger of the shark getting in his work. Twice the boy called out, "There he is!" Once I caught a glimpse of the monster a few yards off on our port beam, heading to the shore also, but evidently watching for a chance to attack us.
The tide was now running out, and consequently the more we neared the shore, the shoaler the water got. The shark had not stopped to consider this in his mad rush to catch us. At last our canoe grounded on the sands and we looked back with relief at our narrow escape. But, ah! what is that about a couple of acres astern, surely not the shark! But it was, and he was floundering about in shallow water, in one of the pools, and every minute the water was getting less. "Hoop-la! we will now hunt the shark," I said to little Moses, as I started off toward him over the now dry sands.
Yes, there he was, the great, ugly beast, flopping about in a basin surrounded by banks, out of which it was impossible for him to escape. From the shore the boy's father and one of my men saw what was going on and came out with a handful of bullets and their guns. In the meantime I was employing the time with good results, by pouring into the shark charge after charge of AAA shot at close range.
By the time the men reached us the fish was pretty sick, and apart from snapping his immense jaws, was lying perfectly still. The first bullet from a distance of ten feet put an end to him. When the tide came in again we towed him into the river and cut him up and salted the chunks in barrels to feed the dogs the next winter. From the liver we rendered out three gallons of oil as clear as water. This of itself was of value to us the next winter in our lamps, it gave a clear light and emitted no smoke. Those were the days before coal oil came into general use. Our only lights at the post were home-made tallow candles, or a cotton rag from a tin spout fed by seal-oil. This, combined with the burning rag, gave off a heavy, dense, black smoke, which was, if not injurious, very unpleasant to inhale during the long winter evenings. The shark-oil being so much superior, I kept it for my own private lamps, and the teeth ornamented the mantlepiece.