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29 chapters
The Story of the West Series.
The Story of the West Series.
Each Illustrated, 12mo, Cloth. The Story of the Railroad. By Cy Warman , Author of "The Express Messenger." $1.50. The Story of the Cowboy. By E. Hough . Illustrated by William L. Wells and C. M. Russell. $1.50. The Story of the Mine. Illustrated by the Great Comstock Lode of Nevada. By Charles Howard Shinn . $1.50. The Story of the Indian. By George Bird Grinnell , Author of "Pawnee Hero Stories," "Blackfoot Lodge Tales," etc. $1.50. The Story of the Soldier. By Brevet Brigadier-General George
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ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR HEMING AND OTHERS
ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR HEMING AND OTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1916 Copyright , 1902 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America...
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EDITOR'S PREFACE
EDITOR'S PREFACE
The picturesque figure of the trapper follows close behind the Indian in the unfolding of the panorama of the West. There is the explorer, but the trapper himself preceded the explorers—witness Lewis's and Clark's meetings with trappers on their journey. The trapper's hard-earned knowledge of the vast empire lying beyond the Missouri was utilized by later comers, or in a large part died with him, leaving occasional records in the documents of fur companies, or reports of military expeditions, or
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GAMESTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
GAMESTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
Fearing nothing, stopping at nothing, knowing no law, ruling his stronghold of the wilds like a despot, checkmating rivals with a deviltry that beggars parallel, wassailing with a shamelessness that might have put Rome's worst deeds to the blush, fighting—fighting—fighting, always fighting with a courage that knew no truce but victory, the American trapper must ever stand as a type of the worst and the best in the militant heroes of mankind. Each with an army at his back, Wolfe and Napoleon won
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THREE COMPANIES IN CONFLICT
THREE COMPANIES IN CONFLICT
If only one company had attempted to take possession of the vast fur country west of the Mississippi, the fur trade would not have become international history; but three companies were at strife for possession of territory richer than Spanish Eldorado, albeit the coin was "beaver"—not gold. Each of three companies was determined to use all means fair or foul to exclude its rivals from the field; and a fourth company was drawn into the strife because the conflict menaced its own existence. From
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THE NOR' WESTERS' COUP
THE NOR' WESTERS' COUP
" It had been decided in council at Fort William that the company should send the Isaac Todd to the Columbia River, where the Americans had established Astoria, and that a party should proceed from Fort William (overland) to meet the ship on the coast ," wrote MacDonald of Garth, a North-West partner, for the perusal of his children. This was decided at the North-West council of 1812, held annually on the shores of Lake Superior. It was just a year from the time that Thompson had discovered the
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THE ANCIENT HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY WAKENS UP
THE ANCIENT HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY WAKENS UP
Those eighty [21] Astorians and Nor' Westers who set inland with their ten canoes and boats under protection of two swivels encountered as many dangers on the long trip across the continent as they had left at Fort George. Following the wandering course of the Columbia, the traders soon passed the international boundary northward into the Arrow Lakes with their towering sky-line of rampart walls, on to the great bend of the Columbia where the river becomes a tumultuous torrent milky with glacial
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MR. ASTOR'S COMPANY ENCOUNTERS NEW OPPONENTS
MR. ASTOR'S COMPANY ENCOUNTERS NEW OPPONENTS
That Andrew Henry whom Lisa had sought when he pursued the Astorians up the Missouri continued to be dogged by misfortune on the west side of the mountains. Game was scarce and his half-starving followers were scattered, some to the British posts in the north, some to the Spaniards in the south, and some to the nameless graves of the mountains. Henry forced his way back over the divide and met Lisa in the Aricara country. The British war broke out and the Missouri Company were compelled to aband
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THE FRENCH TRAPPER
THE FRENCH TRAPPER
To live hard and die hard, king in the wilderness and pauper in the town, lavish to-day and penniless to-morrow—such was the life of the most picturesque figure in America's history. Take a map of America. Put your finger on any point between the Gulf of Mexico and Hudson Bay, or the Great Lakes and the Rockies. Ask who was the first man to blaze a trail into this wilderness; and wherever you may point, the answer is the same—the French trapper. Impoverished English noblemen of the seventeenth c
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THE BUFFALO-RUNNERS
THE BUFFALO-RUNNERS
If the trapper had a crest like the knights of the wilderness who lived lives of daredoing in olden times, it should represent a canoe, a snow-shoe, a musket, a beaver, and a buffalo. While the beaver was his quest and the coin of the fur-trading realm, the buffalo was the great staple on which the very existence of the trapper depended. Bed and blankets and clothing, shields for wartime, sinew for bows, bone for the shaping of rude lance-heads, kettles and bull-boats and saddles, roof and rug a
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THE MOUNTAINEERS
THE MOUNTAINEERS
It was in the Rocky Mountains that American trapping attained its climax of heroism and dauntless daring and knavery that out-herods comparison. The War of 1812 had demoralized the American fur trade. Indians from both sides of the international boundary committed every depredation, and evaded punishment by scampering across the line to the protection of another flag. Alexander MacKenzie of the North-West Company had been the first of the Canadian traders to cross the Rockies, reaching the Pacif
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THE TAKING OF THE BEAVER
THE TAKING OF THE BEAVER
All summer long he had hung about the fur company trading-posts waiting for the signs. And now the signs had come. Foliage crimson to the touch of night-frosts. Crisp autumn days, spicy with the smell of nuts and dead leaves. Birds flying away southward, leaving the woods silent as the snow-padded surface of a frozen pond. Hoar-frost heavier every morning; and thin ice edged round stagnant pools like layers of mica. Then he knew it was time to go. And through the Northern forests moved a new pre
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THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS
THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS
It is a grim joke of the animal world that the lazy moose is the moose that gives wings to the feet of the pursuer. When snow comes the trapper must have snow-shoes and moccasins. For both, moose supplies the best material. Bees have their drones, beaver their hermits, and moose a ladified epicure who draws off from the feeding-yards of the common herd, picks out the sweetest browse of the forest, and gorges herself till fat as a gouty voluptuary. While getting the filling for his snow-shoes, th
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THE INDIAN TRAPPER
THE INDIAN TRAPPER
It is dawn when the Indian trapper leaves his lodge. In midwinter of the Far North, dawn comes late. Stars, which shine with a hard, clear, crystal radiance only seen in northern skies, pale in the gray morning gloom; and the sun comes over the horizon dim through mists of frost-smoke. In an hour the frost-mist, lying thick to the touch like clouds of steam, will have cleared; and there will be nothing from sky-line to sky-line but blinding sunlight and snowglare. The Indian trapper must be far
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BA'TISTE, THE BEAR HUNTER
BA'TISTE, THE BEAR HUNTER
The city man, who goes bear-hunting with a body-guard of armed guides in a field where the hunted have been on the run from the hunter for a century, gets a very tame idea of the natural bear in its natural state. Bears that have had the fear of man inculcated with longe-range repeaters lose confidence in the prowess of an aggressive onset against invisible foes. The city man comes back from the wilds with a legend of how harmless bears have become. In fact, he doesn't believe a wild animal ever
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JOHN COLTER—FREE TRAPPER
JOHN COLTER—FREE TRAPPER
Long before sunrise hunters were astir in the mountains. The Crows were robbers, the Blackfeet murderers; and scouts of both tribes haunted every mountain defile where a white hunter might pass with provisions and peltries which these rascals could plunder. The trappers circumvented their foes by setting the traps after nightfall and lifting the game before daybreak. Night in the mountains was full of a mystery that the imagination of the Indians peopled with terrors enough to frighten them away
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THE GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD
THE GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD
In the history of the world only one corporate company has maintained empire over an area as large as Europe. Only one corporate company has lived up to its constitution for nearly three centuries. Only one corporate company's sway has been so beneficent that its profits have stood in exact proportion to the well-being of its subjects. Indeed, few armies can boast a rank and file of men who never once retreated in three hundred years, whose lives, generation after generation, were one long bivou
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KOOT AND THE BOB-CAT
KOOT AND THE BOB-CAT
Old whaling ships, that tumble round the world and back again from coast to coast over strange seas, hardly ever suffer any of the terrible disasters that are always overtaking the proud men-of-war and swift liners equipped with all that science can do for them against misfortune. Ask an old salt why this is, and he will probably tell you that he feels his way forward or else that he steers by the same chart as that —jerking his thumb sideways from the wheel towards some sea gull careening over
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I
I
Musquash the Musk-rat Every chapter in the trapper's life is not a "stunt." There are the uneventful days when the trapper seems to do nothing but wander aimlessly through the woods over the prairie along the margin of rush-grown marshy ravines where the stagnant waters lap lazily among the flags, though a feathering of ice begins to rim the quiet pools early in autumn. Unless he is duck-shooting down there in the hidden slough where is a great "quack-quack" of young teals, the trapper may not u
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II
II
Sikak the Skunk Sikak the skunk it is who supplies the best imitations of sable. But cleanse the fur never so well, on a damp day it still emits the heavy sickening odour that betrays its real nature. That odour is sikak's invincible defence against the white trapper. The hunter may follow the little four-abreast galloping footprints that lead to a hole among stones or to rotten logs, but long before he has reached the nesting-place of his quarry comes a stench against which white blood is power
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III
III
Wenusk the Badger Badger, too, is one of the furs taken by the trapper on idle days. East of St. Paul and Winnipeg, the fur is comparatively unknown, or if known, so badly prepared that it is scarcely recognisable for badger. This is probably owing to differences in climate. Badger in its perfect state is a long soft fur, resembling wood marten, with deep overhairs almost the length of one's hand and as dark as marten, with underhairs as thick and soft and yielding as swan's-down, shading in col
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IV
IV
The 'Coon Sir Alexander MacKenzie reported that in 1798 the North-West Company sent out only 100 raccoon from the fur country. Last year the city of St. Paul alone cured 115,000 'coon-skins. What brought about the change? Simply an appreciation of the qualities of 'coon, which combines the greatest warmth with the lightest weight and is especially adapted for a cold climate and constant wear. What was said of badger applies with greater force to 'coon. The 'coon in the East is associated in one'
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THE RARE FURS—HOW THE TRAPPER TAKES SAKWASEW THE MINK, NEKIK THE OTTER, WUCHAK THE FISHER, AND WAPISTAN THE MARTEN I
THE RARE FURS—HOW THE TRAPPER TAKES SAKWASEW THE MINK, NEKIK THE OTTER, WUCHAK THE FISHER, AND WAPISTAN THE MARTEN I
Sakwasew the Mink There are other little chaps with more valuable fur than musquash, whose skin seldom attains higher honour than inside linings, and wahboos, whose snowy coat is put to the indignity of imitating ermine with a dotting of black cat for the ermine's jet tip. There are mink and otter and fisher and fox and ermine and sable, all little fellows with pelts worth their weight in coin of the realm. On one of those idle days when the trapper seems to be doing nothing but lying on his bac
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II
II
Nekik the Otter Sakwasew was not the only fisher at the pool below the falls. On one of those idle days when the trapper sat lazily by the river side, a round head slightly sunburned from black to russet had hobbled up to the surface of the water, peered sharply at the man sitting so still, paddled little flipper-like feet about, then ducked down again. Motionless as the mossed log under him sits the man; and in a moment up comes the little black head again, round as a golf ball, about the size
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III
III
Wuchak the Fisher, or Pekan Wherever the waste of fish or deer is thrown, there will be found lines of double tracks not so large as the wild-cat's, not so small as the otter's, and without the same webbing as the mink's. This is wuchak the fisher, or pekan, commonly called "the black cat"—who, in spite of his fishy name, hates water as cats hate it. And the tracks are double because pekan travel in pairs. He is found along the banks of streams because he preys on fish and fisher, on mink and ot
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IV
IV
Wapistan the Marten When Koot went blind on his way home from the rabbit-hunt, he had intended to set out for the pine woods. Though blizzards still howl over the prairie, by March the warm sun of midday has set the sap of the forests stirring and all the woodland life awakens from its long winter sleep. Cougar and lynx and bear rove through the forest ravenous with spring hunger. Otter, too, may be found where the ice mounds of a waterfall are beginning to thaw. But it is not any of these that
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UNDER THE NORTH STAR—WHERE FOX AND ERMINE RUN I
UNDER THE NORTH STAR—WHERE FOX AND ERMINE RUN I
Of Foxes, Many and Various—Red, Cross, Silver, Black, Prairie, Kit or Swift, Arctic, Blue, and Gray Wherever grouse and rabbit abound, there will foxes run and there will the hunter set steel-traps. But however beautiful a fox-skin may be as a specimen, it has value as a fur only when it belongs to one of three varieties—Arctic, black, and silver. Other foxes—red, cross, prairie, swift, and gray—the trapper will take when they cross his path and sell them in the gross at the fur post, as he used
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II
II
The White Ermine All that was said of the mystery of fox life applies equally to ermine. Why is the ermine of Wisconsin and Minnesota and Dakota a dirty little weasel noted for killing forty chickens in a night, wearing a mahogany-coloured coat with a sulphur strip down his throat, while the ermine of the Arctics is as white as snow, noted for his courage, wearing a spotless coat which kings envy, yes, and take from him? For a long time the learned men who study animal life from museums held tha
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WHAT THE TRAPPER STANDS FOR
WHAT THE TRAPPER STANDS FOR
Waging ceaseless war against beaver and moose, types of nature's most harmless creatures, against wolf and wolverine, types of nature's most destructive agents, against traders who were rivals and Indians who were hostiles, the trapper would almost seem to be himself a type of nature's arch-destroyer. Beautiful as a dream is the silent world of forest and prairie and mountain where the trapper moves with noiseless stealth of the most skilful of all the creatures that prey. In that world, the cra
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