With Trapper Jim in the North Woods Part 15

"Will you leave it out there after this, Uncle Jim?" asked Max.

"On the whole," replied the other, "I guess not. It'll keep all right indoors. And if that hungry cat should come back, the dogs'll smell him and keep up a tarnal barkin' that'll knock our sleep galley-west."

So he proceeded to lower what was left of the venison, which was thereupon carried inside the house and hung up from the rafters, along with numerous other things--packages of dried herbs, stalks of tobacco which Jim had had sent up from Kentucky, where a friend grew the weed, and some dried venison that he called "pemmican" or jerked meat.

As they were all tired and in need of a good night's rest, the boys were just as well pleased with this a.s.surance that their sleep should not be broken.

"I guess that pesky skunk didn't have time to crawl in my bunk,"

announced Bandy-legs, in a satisfied tone, after sniffing the blankets carefully.

"Oh, you're always seeing ghosts where there ain't none!" declared Steve.

The night pa.s.sed away without any serious disturbance. Once or twice there was an outbreak of barking on the part of the dogs, still haunted by memories of the bold bobcat that had dared come so close to the cabin.

Trapper Jim had to go out once to quiet Ajax, whose deep-toned baying seemed to annoy him.

Morning arrived, and the boys, as usual, were up at the first peep of day. There was so much to be done they could not waste time in trying to sleep after the darkness had gone.

On this particular day quite a number of things awaited their attention.

First of all they meant to seek the spot where the big bear trap had been set in the hopes that they would find Bruin caught.

This was only a beginning.

Next in order, Steve and Max had decided to start out, taking Toby along, and fetch in the balance of the venison, Toby had expressed a desire to see the arena where Steve and the five-p.r.o.nged buck held their little circus. He also wished to try how fast he could hurry around that tree, so as to be prepared in case the time ever came when necessity would compel him to adopt the same tactics.

Finally, Trapper Jim, and possibly the ether two boys, would have to make the rounds of the traps to take out any catch, and set them again.

On the whole it promised to be a rather energetic day.

Breakfast having been disposed of the boys all got ready to move on. This time the dogs were taken, because they might prove valuable in case a bear was caught. But Trapper Jim made sure to hold them in leash. He valued the dogs too much to think of taking any more chances of having them injured than he could help. There was no need of risking their lives with a trapped and furious bear when a single bullet would do the business.

"Close that window, boys," said the trapper when they were ready to go.

"You bet we will," declared Steve.

"No more unwelcome guests--whew!" ventured Bandy-legs, as he started to accomplish the duty mentioned by the trapper.

They made quite a large party as they sallied forth--five boys, the trapper, and the two dogs. Each of the boys had a gun of some sort, for they had provided themselves with weapons against this trip to the North Woods and two weeks or so with Trapper Jim.

"I pity the poor bear," said Max, as he looked around at the a.s.sortment of weapons and the eager faces back of them.

"He'll sure die of fright when he sees this bunch all in their war paint," Steve observed. "'Specially when he gets sight of Bandy-legs there with that silly old pump gun he bought and is afraid to use."

"Who's afraid?" sang out the injured party. "I ain't used it just because there ain't been no chance yet, see? If I'd been along with Max when that buck showed up, guess I'd 'a' give him as good as you did."

"Listen, would you, fellers!" exclaimed Steve, and then he laughed. "Say, wouldn't it have been a circus if that deer got to chasing Bandy-legs around a tree! Run? Well, he'd have to stir those stumps of his faster than he ever did before in all his life, or he'd be hangin' on the ends of them horns. I guess you're lucky not to have been there, my boy!"

"We're getting near the place where we set that trap, I reckon," remarked Bandy-legs, partly to change the course of the conversation, for it sometimes made him feel uncomfortable when Steve got to joking upon the subject of his short lower limbs.

"Correct, son," replied the trapper. "I'm glad to see you noticed the lay of things when we was here yesterday."

"It's right over yonder," continued Bandy-legs, anxious now to let Steve see that he was not as stupid as the other made out.

"What makes you so sure of that, Bandy-legs?" asked Max.

"Why, you see, I remember that tree with the big bunch of scarlet leaves.

I was lookin' at that while Uncle Jim set the trap. Ain't another clump like that anywhere around, I reckon," was the smart reply Bandy-legs made.

The old trapper nodded his head.

"He's right," he said. "I took them same five leaves for my mark, too.

The trap was set just beyond. But, of course, that ain't sayin' we'll find it there now."

"Not find the trap, do you say, Uncle Jim?" exclaimed Bandy-legs; "why, whatever could happen to it?"

"If so be the bear came along and put his foot in, so them powerful jaws they closed like a vise, I reckon he'd walk off with it," the trapper replied.

"That's so, you didn't fasten the chain to a stake or a tree," said Owen.

"But I remember that you had a big clump of wood fixed to the end of the chain; what was that for?" Bandy-legs asked.

"I k-k-know; that's the c-c-clog," Toby interrupted them to remark.

"Just what it was," Trapper Jim admitted.

"A clog, was it?" Bandy-legs continued; "but what's the use of it?"

"I'll explain," the other remarked; "when we set a bear trap we generally fasten the chain to a heavy piece of wood. When Bruin shuffles off he drags this after him. And in the course of time it weakens the old chap, for he's losing blood all the time."

"That's kind of cruel; but go on, Uncle Jim," Owen remarked.

"I guess you're about right, son," said the other, "and there's lots that's cruel about this trappin' business. But the women must have their furs, and ever since Adam's time I reckon the animals has had to supply covering for human beings. Eve thought it all over many a time, and I try to be as humane in my work as anybody could."

"But there's another use for the clog, isn't there?" asked Max.

"To be sure there is," Trapper Jim replied. "You see, it drags on the ground and leaves such a plain trail that any tenderfoot could foller it."

"Then you really have no use for the dogs," spoke up Owen. "I supposed they were going to lead us along the trail."

"Oh, they'll do that, all right," laughed the trapper; "but to tell the truth I fetched 'em along for exercise and to keep them from getting uneasy more'n anything else."

He stopped and appeared to be listening.

"Can you tell if he's there?" asked the wondering Bandy-legs.

"I can tell that he ain't there," replied the trapper. "It's all as still as anything. That means either our bear didn't come along his trail after we set the trap, or else he's come and carried it away with him."

"She's gone!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bandy-legs, as he craned his neck the better to see the spot where, as he remembered, the big trap had been set, artfully concealed, squarely in the track Bruin used in going to and fro from the marsh to his chosen den, where he expected to hibernate during the coming winter.

"You're correct, son," Trapper Jim declared. "The bear has been here and walked off with my prize trap. Here's where the clog tore up the ground, you see. I reckon now any one of you boys could follow them marks."