Shaggycoat: The Biography of a Beaver

by Mrs. Molesworth

  CHAPTER XIII

  BEAVER JOE

  Joe Dubois, or Beaver Joe, as he was known to the Factor and his fellowwoodsmen, was the most successful trapper who had ever baited steel jawsfor the Hudson Bay Company in all its long history of two hundred andtwenty-five years. Not in all the howling wilderness from the GreatLakes to the mouth of the Mackenzie, and from Labrador to the Selkirks,was there another who brought in such packs of skins.

  Joe's fellow trappers said that mink and muskrat would play tag on thepans of his traps just for fun, and that the beaver loved Joe's bodyscent on the trap, better than its own castor, an oily substance takenfrom the beaver and nearly always used in baiting the trap.

  Joe was a half-breed, his father being a Frenchman and his mother anIndian girl. It was his father who had given him the nickname of BeaverJoe, but his mother called him by a long Indian name, which I canneither spell nor pronounce, but it signified man of many traps.

  This famous woodsman always went further into the wilderness than anyother trapper, and his rounds of traps were spread over a larger area.He had to travel fifty miles through a trackless wilderness to make thecircle of his traps. How true his Indian's instinct must have been toscatter several hundred traps over an area of fifty miles, and then goto them month after month unerringly. How easy one could have goneastray in the shifting gray glooms of the snow-laden forest, whichchanged from week to week as the snow was piled higher and higher andthe full fury of winter settled on the land.

  But Joe was never lost, and owing to his Indian inheritance, and hisknowledge of the woods in wind and rain, snow and sleet, he rarely losta trap.

  He always located his cabin at a central point where he could return toit every two or three days.

  His was not the ordinary shack but a well built cabin with a hole aboutsix by eight under it called the cellar.

  Why Joe wanted a good cabin, instead of a rude shack, and why he tookpains to make it comfortable, you will see later.

  On the fourth summer of his rambles, Shaggycoat went much further fromhome than usual. This nomadic habit grew upon him, and each year hevisited new lakes and streams. But this year he left all his oldlandmarks far behind and penetrated a new country.

  Occasionally he saw signs that made him think this country was inhabitedby the strange creature who had visited his lake two years before, inthe great red duck. Something told him that it was a fearful country butcuriosity and a desire to visit new places impelled him on and on.

  Once he heard a loud pounding in the forest near the stream, and goingcautiously forward, saw one of the strange creatures standing by a largetree, pounding upon it with mighty strokes. He was about to turn andflee from the place in haste, when he noticed a tremor in the top of thetree. He had seen this shudder in a tree many times before and knew wellwhat it meant, so waited to watch and listen.

  Then the strange creature struck upon the tree a few times more and itwavered, as though uncertain where to lay its tall form. Then with arush and a roar, and a thunderous sound that rolled away through theforest, it fell and was no more a tree, but only a stick of timber.

  When the sable mantle of night had been spread over the land and thecreature who stood on his hind legs and pounded at the tree sovigorously had gone away, Shaggycoat went ashore and examined his workcritically.

  Tree-felling was in his line and this interested him very much.

  Perhaps the queer creature was a beaver after all, for he was cuttingtrees just as they did about his own lake, but when he had examined thestump, he felt quite sure it was not the work of a beaver. The cleft wasvery smooth, and there were no teeth marks. The trunk had been cut intwo, and here the cut was also smooth. The chips were much larger thanthose left by a beaver.

  During the next few days Shaggycoat saw signs of much tree-cutting andthey were all evidently cut by the creature who pounded on the trunkwith his bright stick. The following week he came upon something thatinterested and astonished him even more than this, and that was a realdam, more symmetrical than his own, and holding in its strong arms abeautiful lake. He was sure that the dam was not made by beavers, formany of the logs used in its construction were too large for a beaver tomanage. Besides there was a queer doorway in the middle of the dam forthe water to run through. The lake was rather low and considerable waterwas escaping through the door.

  Our industrious dam-builder thought this waste of water a great pity,and although the dam did not belong to him, he set to work and in half aday had stopped the sluiceway very effectively.

  This industry greatly astonished the real owners of the dam, whodiscovered it a week later. They were a party of log-men, who had builtthe dam to help them in getting their logs through a long stretch ofshallow water.

  The following day Shaggycoat came upon a great number of logs in thestream.

  They stretched miles and miles, and he thought these must be remarkablecreatures, who could cut so many logs. He also thought it was getting tobe a perilous country, and no place for a beaver who wished to live along life, so he started homeward.

  The leaves had just turned red upon the soft maple along the littlewater courses and that was a sign that he always heeded.

  The second day of his return journey, while wading through a shallow inthe stream, he put his remaining good forepaw in one of Joe Dubois'straps. It was only a mink trap, and would not have held, had he beengiven time to wrench himself free, but he had barely sprung the trapwhen the alder bushes on the bank parted and the celebrated trapper,club in hand, stood upon the shore within ten feet of the terrifiedbeaver.

  "Oh, by gar!" exclaimed Joe at the sight of him. "You is just one pig,fine skin by gar. I got you.

  "Now you run away, I shoot. You keep still, I kill you with my club.That not tear you fine coat."

  So Joe got hold of the end of the chain and began carefully working thebeaver in toward him, holding the club ready.

  When he had drawn poor Shaggycoat within striking distance he raised theclub slowly.

  The beaver saw the flash of the sunlight on the stick and the sinisterlook in Joe's eye, and something told him that his hour had come. He hadseen a beaver killed once by a falling limb, and he knew quite well howstiff and motionless he would be when the club had descended. All in asecond the picture of his woodland lake and Beaver City flashed beforehim and there was Brighteyes, and the beaver kids all waitingexpectantly for him; all the colony waiting for his home-coming thatthey might begin repairs upon the dam.

  The sun had never shone so brightly in all his life as it did at thatmoment, and the murmur of a brook had never sounded so sweet in hisears. But some great lady in the far away city was waiting impatientlyfor her cloak, and the factor at the post was holding out two brightshillings, so Joe brought the club down with a mighty stroke.

  But the love of life was strong in Shaggycoat, as it is in nearly allanimate things, so, quick as a flash, he twitched his head to one side,and the club fell in the stream with a great splash, filling thetrapper's eyes with water.

  "By gar," ejaculated Joe, blowing the water from his mouth, and layingdown the club to wipe his eyes. "You is one mighty slick beaver, thatyou is, but it wasn't smart of you to get into my trap. Dat time you wasone pig fool." Then a sudden inspiration came to Joe.

  "By gar," he exclaimed, "I good mind to pring you home to my leetle gal.How she laugh when she see you. You pehave, I do it. You bother me, Iprain you."

  Then Joe scratched his head and thought. How could it be done? Finally aplan came to him, for he went to the alder bushes and cut a crotchedstick, and another stick which was straight. With the crotched stick, hepinned Shaggycoat's neck to the ground, while with a piece of buckskinthong taken from his pocket he made a tight fitting collar for thebeaver's neck. Then with another piece of thong he bound his hind legstightly together. When this had been done, he passed a stout stickthrough the collar and the other end of it, between the beaver's hindlegs. He then loosed the trap, and, grasping the stick half-way betwee
nthe collar and the thong on the hind legs, started off with the unhappybeaver, carrying him, so that all the landscape looked upside down.

  At first, Shaggycoat struggled violently but whenever he struggled Joetapped him on the nose with his club and he soon saw that his bestcourse was to keep still and let his captor carry him wherever he would.

  The stick through the collar choked him so that he could hardly breathe,and the thong on his hind legs cut into the muscles, but even thesediscomforts were better than the club from which he had so narrowlyescaped, so he behaved very well for a wild thing and watched Joe'severy motion, always with a view of making a break for freedom at thefirst opportunity. But there seemed little chance of escape as long asthe stick held him stretched out at his full length so that he could notget at his fetters.

  So the woods went by with the trees all upside down, sticking their topsinto the sky.

  The blood surged into Shaggycoat's head, and his eyes grew dim. Thegreat sleep was coming to him, that into which his grandfather hadfallen, from which there was no awakening.