They now occupied every moment, from daylight and before, till in the evening, in hunting bears, digging out coons, stretching and scraping the skins, and trapping beaver and foxes.

The camp inside was hung around with skins, and outside the snow was covered with the bodies of the different animals, which attracted the wolves in troops, and the woods resounded with their howlings.

Uncle Isaac set a steel trap in a spring of water, and caught two silver-gray foxes. He now took four of the large mackerel-hooks, fastened them together, and wound them with twine, so as to form a grappling, fastened a strong cord, made of twisted deer sinews, to them, dipped them in grease, permitting it to cool after every dip, till the hooks were all covered in the great bunch of grease, fastened the rope to a tree, and kept watch. It was not long before a hungry wolf swallowed the ball of grease, and, the hooks sticking in his throat, he was caught. The steel traps, which were very scarce in that day, and were all imported, were used for beaver, otter, and two of them for foxes; the other animals were taken in dead-falls and box-traps.

As they had a frow, to split out boards, and a saw, they made many box-traps, putting them together with wooden pins, and in them caught great numbers of minks and muskrats; they also killed many deer and moose.

The traps for beaver were set in holes cut in the ice, and the bait was scented, and made attractive with the composition in Uncle Isaac’s vials. Another method was to dig a pit in the ground, make a road to it with stakes, then hang a board between the stakes, so nicely balanced, that, when the animal stepped upon it, it would turn, and let him into the pit. In order to attract the game, the bait was dragged along the ground, that it might leave its scent between the line of stakes, then placed beyond the pit, that the animal, in following up the scent, might step on the trap. The dead-falls were constructed by making an enclosure of stakes, open at one end, inside of which a piece of wood was laid on the ground crosswise, and fastened. They then fastened a heavy piece of hard wood to a stake with a peg, so that it would play up and down easily: this was called the killer, the end of which was held up by a thong of deer sinew, which went over another crotchet stake driven into the ground. Through this stake a hole was bored, to admit a spindle; the string which held up the killer was fastened by a flat piece of wood, one end of which went into a notch in the stake, the other into a notch in the end of the spindle, like the spindle of a common box-trap; another heavy piece of wood was then placed one end on the ground, between two stakes, to keep it from rolling, the other on the top of the killer, to give force to the fall. When the animal touched the spindle to which the bait was fastened, both the killer and the stick placed on to reËnforce it came down, and caught him between the killer and the piece on the ground.

In default of an auger, it could all be made with an axe, by using double stakes and strings, or withes. These were made larger or smaller, according to the size of the animal to be caught; they were surrounded with stakes, and covered on top with brush, to keep the animal from robbing them behind, or on top. For beaver, they set them in the paths where they went to the woods, cut a piece of wood, flat on the upper side, four inches wide, and bevelling on the under side, so that it would rotate, canting it down on one edge, put that edge under the end of the spindle, and strewed over it twigs and chips of red willow and beaver root, rubbed with medicine, and when the beaver put his mouth or paw on the board it canted, and, lifting the end of the spindle, sprung the trap.

For raccoons, they set them at the ends of hollow logs, and in the little runs that led down to the ponds and brooks; and for the otter, at the places where they rubbed when they came out of the water, and near their sliding places. For raccoons, they baited with frogs, and chips of bears’ and beavers’ meat, with honey dropped on it; and for otters, with fish which they caught through holes in the ice.

As the winter wore away, thaws became more frequent, and the coons and beaver began to awake from their half-torpid state, they caught more and more, getting ten or twelve beavers a night.

They now separated, part of them living in the house camp, and part at the river camp and shanty, for the greater convenience of tending the traps, which were scattered along a range of many miles, all assembling at the home camp on the Lord’s day, when they had a meeting. As the season was now approaching when the ice would begin to break up, and the frequent rains had rendered the ice transparent, so they could see the beavers and muskrats under it, they determined to attack them in their houses. In the first place, they prepared and sharpened a great number of stakes, and, cutting through the ice, drove them into the bottom of the pond, around the houses, and around the holes in the bank, thus fastening the beavers in; then tearing down the houses with tools they had brought with them, they knocked the beavers on the head, and flung them out on the ice.

Beavers and muskrats will swim under the ice as long as they can hold their breath, then breathe it out against the ice: when it has absorbed oxygen from the water, they will take the bubble in again, and go on; the boys would follow them up, and, before they had time to take in the bubble, strike with their hatchets over them, and drive them away from their breath, when they would soon drown, and could be cut out.

They labored unremittingly, under the wildest excitement, stopping neither to eat nor drink till nearly sundown, when, bathed in perspiration, every house was in ruins, and the ice thickly strewn with dead beavers: they then desisted.

“We are all as hot as we can be,” said Uncle Isaac. “The first thing to be done is to put on our clothes, and make a fire to cool off by. We’ve got about four tons of beaver carcasses here: it would take all night to haul them to the camp; and if we leave them here, all the wolves in the woods will be on hand, and not a hide of them be left by morning. So I don’t see any other way than to build a camp, and stay here; and we can have our choice, either to take them into the camp, or sit up by turns, and watch them.”

“I say take them into the camp,” said Joe Griffin. “And here’s just the place to build it, on this old windfall.”

“Now, Charlie,” said Uncle Isaac, “while we are building a camp, you and John run to the home camp, and get the kettle, a birch dish, and some tea.”

The rude shelter, sufficient for these hardy men, was soon completed, the beaver brought inside, and a fire built. Uncle Isaac proposed, as they had met with such luck, that they should have a beaver singed for supper. “They could afford it,” he said, “though, of course, it spoilt the skin.”

This was unanimously agreed to, when, picking out one of the youngest and fattest, they cut off his tail, scalded and scraped off the scales, then, holding the rest over the fire, singed off all the hair, and scraped it clean with their knives. While Joe was turning the spit, and John making tea, Charlie noticed Uncle Isaac picking out some of the dryest of the wood, and piling it up a little distance from the camp, and putting beneath it a parcel of birch bark, as if he was going to light a fire.

“What are you going to do?” asked Charlie.

The old gentleman would give him no answer, only saying, with a knowing look, that he would see before morning.

The beaver, being roasted, was placed in the birch dish. Sitting round it, these hungry men, who had eaten nothing since long before the break of day, made fierce onslaught with their hunting-knives. For nearly half an hour no sound was heard but that of vigorous mastication, and the crackling of the fire. At length Joe, after looking round upon his companions and the great pile of game with a look of the most intense satisfaction, and speaking thick, with a rib of beaver between his teeth, broke the silence by saying “Haven’t we done it this time, Uncle Isaac?”

“Yes, Joseph,” replied the old hunter, speaking with great deliberation, and giving the name in full, a habit he had when much pleased, “we certainly have. I’ve been trapping in the woods winters, more or less, ever since I was a boy, with the Indians, and when the beavers were a great deal more plenty than they are now; but I never saw near so many taken at one time before.”

Some time during the night, John, who slept nearest to the door, was awakened by a concert of sounds so horrible that it caused him to jump right up on his feet, with a cry that awoke the rest, and, grasping Joe by the shoulder, exclaimed, “For Heaven’s sake, what is it?”

“It’s wolves,” said Uncle Isaac. “I was calculating on them: they scent the roast meat; the fire has burnt low, and that emboldens them. Throw on some wood, Joe; they must be taught to keep their distance, or there’ll be no sleep,” said he; and taking up a brand, he set fire to the pile outside, which lighting up the forest, the wolves withdrew, but still kept up their howling at a distance. It was now evident why Uncle Isaac had prepared the pile of wood out doors.

“We were careless,” said he, “to let the fire get so low, and might have paid dearly for it.”

“Why,” said John, “will they tackle men?”

“Yes, when there is a drove of them, and they are hungry: they are cowardly, cruel creeturs; I hate ’em,” said he, as they stood gazing on the gaunt forms flitting among the trees just beyond the line of fire-light, licking their dry jaws, and snapping their tusks. One old gray wolf, who seemed to be a leader, followed the track made by dragging the bodies of the beavers to the very edge of the shadow cast by the woods, so that his head and shoulders were distinctly visible.

“Only see the cruel varmint!” said Uncle Isaac; “see those jaws and tusks, and that great red tongue. We ought not to waste powder, but that fellow tempts a man too much: fire at him, John; aim for his eyes, and I’ll finish him if you don’t.”

John, needing no second admonition, fired on the instant, when the wolf, leaping forward, fell his whole length in the snow, and, rolling over a few times, stretched out, quivered, and became motionless.

“I mean to skin him in the morning,” said John.

“Then you must put him in the camp; for if he lies there, nothing will be left of him in the morning but bones.”

“Why, will the wolves eat each other?”

“Eat each other? Yes, just as quick as they’ll eat anything else. There’s no Christianity in ’em. They will dig up a dead body in a graveyard.”

“But how shall I get him?” said John, who, after this revelation, did not feel much like trusting himself far from the fire.

Uncle Isaac seized a brand, and, waving it in the air, the wolves retreated, and John took the dead wolf by the hind legs, and drew him to the fire.

After replenishing both fires with fuel, they lay down again, and were soon fast asleep, except John and Charlie, from whose eyes the events of the evening and the howling of the wolves had effectually banished sleep until near daybreak, when they too sank into a sound slumber.

They now broke into the other beaver houses, and, as the weather grew warmer, tapped the maples, procured sap to drink, and made sugar; and, as they could boil but little in their camp-kettle, they froze the sap. This took the water out, and reduced the quantity, leaving that which remained very sweet, and so much less in quantity to boil down.