Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
"Indians catch the otter, and many other wild animals, in a sort of trap, which they call a 'deadfall. Wolves are often so trapped, and then shot.
In this case it was a bear's register, but before long Quonab showed Rolf a place where two long logs joined at an angle by a tree that was rubbed and smelly, and showed a few marten hairs, indicating that this was the sign post of a marten and a good place to make a deadfall. Yet a third was found in an open, grassy glade, a large, white stone on which were pellets left by foxes.
I had to cut away quite a number of interlacing branches, and hoist you out of the crevasse with the pack ropes, then slide you down the deadfall as best I could. It took me a full hour to get you clear of the trees and safely to the ground, and all the time I was oppressed with the thought that you were dead, or would die before I could do anything to recover you.
Pierrot's trap line swung into the north and west, covering in all a matter of fifty miles, with an average of two traps, one deadfall, and a poison bait to each mile. It was a twisting line blazed along streams for mink, otter, and marten, piercing the deepest forests for fishercat and lynx and crossing lakes and storm-swept strips of barrens where poison baits could be set for fox and wolf.
We would occasionally sit down awhile and let the sweat run off while a party of them passed us. Some were mounted on horses, some on mules, and some on donkeys, and they had to pay twelve dollars for the use of an animal for the trip. Our night at this wayside deadfall was not much better than some of the nights about Death Valley, but as I was used to low fare, I did not complain as some did.
Joe Divide and as far south as Bald Mountains. The snow fall in this part is very heavy, we were making a Deadfall one day when Billy Thorn made a miss cue with his heavy sharp ax and severed his shin bone and nearly looped off his leg. The ax struck about four inches below the knee, and nearly cut his leg completely off. We were thirteen miles from headquarters camp.
In his suspicious eyes even a calf might be dangerous to tamper with, under such unusual conditions as these. As he vanished the calf shuddered violently, and tried to climb upon his mother's mangled body. In a few seconds the bear's head appeared again, close by the base of the deadfall. With crafty nose he sniffed at the great timber which held the moose cow down.
The gray, or timber, wolf is trapped in the same way as the coloured fox, save only that the trap is larger. Though the steel trap is much in vogue among white men and half-breeds, the deadfall, even to this day, is much preferred by the Indian.
In order, however, to better his chances of catching the mink, the hunter may build a deadfall near the trap, where the animal is in the habit of entering the bush. Then extra bait of rancid fish or duck is used. This mode of water-trapping applies, also, to muskrat, otter, and beaver.
In the forest feeding grounds of Polus Mountains, between the Bontoc culture area and the Banawi area to the south, these pitfalls are very abundant, there frequently being two or three within a space one rod square. A deadfall, called "il-tib'," is built for hogs near the sementeras in the mountains.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking