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The trappers drop in singly and in small bands, bringing their packs of beaver to this mountain market, not unfrequently to the value of a thousand dollars each, the produce of one hunt. The dissipation of the rendezvous, however, soon turns the trapper's pocket inside out. The goods brought by the traders, although of the most inferior quality, are sold at enormous prices.
Every effort was made to gain the nearest island; to reach the mainland was impossible, for the rain poured down a blinding deluge. It was with difficulty the little craft was kept afloat by baling out the water; to do this, Louis was fain to use his cap, and Catharine assisted with the old tin pot which she had fortunately brought from the trapper's shanty.
Now Dick is a good, active, able-bodied boy, possessed of average intelligence and rather more than average zeal. He even had theory of a sort, for he had read various "Boy Campers, or the Trapper's Guide," "How to Camp Out," "The Science of Woodcraft," and other able works. He certainly had ideas enough and confidence enough. I sat down on a log.
Here is a striking contrast, in which extremes meet, not the martens' tails, but the two men's wives, the banker's and the trapper's, brought into antithetical relation by the simple circumstance of a fichu-russe, the material of which was worn in some ravine of the wilderness, mayhap not a twelvemonth since, by a creature faster even than a banker's wife.
A short time afterwards, the cave was stored with all the articles necessary to a trapper's life, and soon became the rendezvous of all the adventurous men from the banks of the river Platte to the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Since Boone had settled in his present abode, he had had a hand-to-hand fight with a black bear, in the very room where we were sitting.
It isn't often that I feed in the settlements, or get a taste of their cookin', but the man who basted these birds knowed what he was doin', and the fire has given them jest the right tech; and the morsels actilly melt in yer mouth." The Trapper's feelings were evidently not peculiar to himself. And the spirit of feasting was abroad. The eating was such as would astonish the dwellers in cities.
Trapper Colter had reached the mouth of the Platte River, in Nebraska was almost "home," to the States, after an absence of three years; but he cared little. Trader Lisa wished him to be their scout to the Yellowstone and help them with the Indians; so he promptly turned around and took the back trail. He loved the trapper's life.
He walked round its three sides, and, as he came to the far side of it, and thoughtfully took in the method of its construction, he suddenly became aware of another example of the old trapper's cunning.
With growing perplexity, Jan examined the snow-shoe trails in the snow. The most recent of them were days old. He urged on his dogs, stopping no more at the trap-houses, until, with a shrieking command, he brought them to a halt at the edge of a clearing cut in the forest. A dozen rods ahead of him was the trapper's cabin. Over it, hanging limply to a sapling pole, was the red signal of horror.
He made no effort to speak in these moments. Pierre's eyes were dark and luminous as they sought his own. The draught he had taken gave him a passing strength. "I saw Thorpe again this afternoon," he said, more calmly. "D'Arcambal thought I had taken Jeanne to visit a trapper's wife down the Churchill. I saw Thorpe alone. He had been drinking.
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