It is
with regret we add, too, that this hostility has in many cases been
instigated by traders, desirous of injuring their rivals, but who have
themselves often reaped the fruits of the mischief they have sown.
When two trappers undertake any considerable stream, their mode of
proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can
graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a
cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening,
and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at
daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch
the skins on sticks to dry, and feast upon the flesh. The body, hung up
before the fire, turns by its own weight, and is roasted in a superior
style; the tail is the trapper's tidbit; it is cut off, put on the end
of a stick, and toasted, and is considered even a greater dainty than
the tongue or the marrow-bone of a buffalo.
With all their silence and caution, however, the poor trappers cannot
always escape their hawk-eyed enemies. Their trail has been discovered,
perhaps, and followed up for many a mile; or their smoke has been seen
curling up out of the secret glen, or has been scented by the savages,
whose sense of smell is almost as acute as that of sight. Sometimes they
are pounced upon when in the act of setting their traps; at other times,
they are roused from their sleep by the horrid war-whoop; or, perhaps,
have a bullet or an arrow whistling about their ears, in the midst of
one of their beaver banquets.
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