In such cases, however,
it costs the trapper diligent search, and sometimes a bout at swimming,
before he finds his game.
Occasionally it happens that several members of a beaver family are
trapped in succession. The survivors then become extremely shy, and
can scarcely be "brought to medicine," to use the trapper's phrase for
"taking the bait." In such case, the trapper gives up the use of the
bait, and conceals his traps in the usual paths and crossing places of
the household. The beaver now being completely "up to trap," approaches
them cautiously, and springs them ingeniously with a stick. At other
times, he turns the traps bottom upwards, by the same means, and
occasionally even drags them to the barrier and conceals them in the
mud. The trapper now gives up the contest of ingenuity, and shouldering
his traps, marches off, admitting that he is not yet "up to beaver."
On the day following Captain Bonneville's supervision of the industrious
and frolicsome community of beavers, of which he has given so edifying
an account, he succeeded in extricating himself from the Wind River
Mountains, and regaining the plain to the eastward, made a great bend
to the south, so as to go round the bases of the mountains, and arrived
without further incident of importance, at the old place of rendezvous
in Green River valley, on the 17th of September.
He found the caches, in which he had deposited his superfluous goods
and equipments, all safe, and having opened and taken from them the
necessary supplies, he closed them again; taking care to obliterate all
traces that might betray them to the keen eyes of Indian marauders.
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