all that night the storm raged and in the morning the snow was still falling. pat and alec from force of habit were up early, but seeing that there would be nothing doing outside they forbore to waken the three visitors and were not averse to returning to their blankets for a couple of hours of extra sleep. how long the three boys would have slept is a question had not alec dropped a pan which clattered noisily. upton poked a sleepy face out from his bunk.
"what you fellers doing?" he demanded.
pat grinned. "getting dinner. will you have some or will you wait for supper?"
walter felt for his watch and looked at it. then he tumbled out in a hurry. "hey, you fellows!" he yelled. "are you going to sleep all day? it's eleven o'clock and alec is cooking dinner. we've missed breakfast and——"
"my tummy, oh, my tummy!"
murmured a sleepy voice from the opposite bunk. "what you giving us? it isn't morning yet." hal thrust out a tousled head and blinked stupidly.
"it isn't to-morrow morning, but it will be this afternoon in about an hour," laughed pat. "'tis the way they do in noo yor-r-k, turn day into night," he explained to alec.
"no such thing!" protested hal indignantly. "it isn't more'n daylight now."
there was some foundation in fact for hal's statement, for the little cabin, but dimly lighted at best, was even at this late hour in a semi twilight, due to the snow that partly covered the windows; the effect was very much that of daybreak. the odor of frying bacon, however, was a potent inducement to get up, and by the time dinner was ready the boys were ready for it. there was considerable good-natured joshing over their ability to sleep and pat warned them that if they repeated the performance they would be taken out and dropped in a snow-bank. it had been a good thing for them, however, just what they needed after their strenuous experience of the previous day, and beyond some stiffness they confessed that they never had felt better in their lives.
"what are we going to do this afternoon—start scouting for those thieves?" hal asked as he wiped the dishes.
pat laughed. "not so that you'd notice it, me bye. we're going to stay right here. the storm's not over yet, and if it keeps on i'm thinking we'll be buried completely. however, it looks to me as if it will break away shortly, and then you'll have a chance to show what good little diggers they raise in noo yor-r-k."
"and in the meantime?"
"we'll enjoy all the comforts av home." pat yawned and stretched.
"which means, i suppose, that we'll sit around and play simon says thumbs up, or something like that, all the afternoon," laughed hal.
"perhaps ye'd like to sleep some more," suggested alec slyly.
"and perhaps you've got another guess coming," retorted hal. "what's that thing you're whittling on?"
"a stretching board for marten," replied alec.
"what's a stretching board, and how do you use it?" hal was all interest.
"to stretch skins on. dinna ye know that all skins have to be stretched?" alec tossed the board one side and reached for another.
"don't know a thing about trapping or furs except that dad has promised me a new fur coat when i get back," retorted hal. "i'm painfully and sublimely ignorant, but willing to learn, and i have a hunch that there are others. suppose you elucidate the facts by way of killing time."
"here, here! that will do for you, hal!" cried upton. "your alleged poetry is bad enough without springing anything like that. what have you been doing at that prep school—confabulating with the profs or flirting with the dictionary? elucidate! i move, fellows, that if he springs anything more like that we throw him in the snow. i would suggest doing it anyway if his idea wasn't so good. go to it, alec, and tell us about fur."
"i dinna ken where to begin," protested alec as he carefully rounded the smaller of his board to a point so that it looked much like one of the shingle boats every boy knows.
"begin with that thing you're making—stretching board, i believe you called it," said hal.
"that would be holding the gun by the wrong end," protested pat. "the story all happens before one of these things is needed." pat was himself at work on a stretching board.
"begin with the kinds of fur, and the ways in which it is trapped, and the life of a trapper and all that sort of stuff," suggested upton.
"just tell us what youse do every day and how youse live all alone and de scraps youse gets inter wid de bears 'n' things, and how youse has t' foight for life, an' pass it out hot—right off de fire."
"that's the stuff, sparrer! that's what we want," cried hal, as everybody laughed. "give us the story of trapping right off the griddle."
"ye dinna find anything very hot aboot a trapper's life." alec paused in his work to gaze reflectively into the fire. "it's mostly cold and lonesomeness and hard work. there's no fighting with the beasties worth mentioning; it's mostly fighting with storms and sometimes hunger, and a struggle with nature. i've sometimes wondered if some of the grand ladies and men, too, would be so proud and take so much pleasure in their fine furs if they knew what it has cost in suffering to man and beastie to get them. and yet i am no complaining, laddies. ye ken that. it's a hard life, and yet there is something aboot it that gets down into a man and calls him, and he has to hit the trails and is no happy until he does.
"the fur that we get in this country is muskrat, mink, otter, marten, fox, lynx and once in a while fisher. sometimes we get a few skunks, but not many so far in as this. we used to get beaver, but it is against the law to take the beasties at any time now."
"which is the most valuable?" hal interrupted.
"black or silver fox. they're worth so much they don't count. i've trapped ever since i was knee high to a speckled fawn and haven't taken one yet. i dinna ken what they're worth, but i've heard that more'n $2,500 has been paid for an extra prime skin."
"what makes 'em worth so much? is it because the fur is so extra fine?" asked upton.
"fine nothing!" pat broke in. "if there is any poorer wearing fur than fox i wish you'd show me. a large prime red fox will bring only four dollars to perhaps six or seven in a year when fur is scarce and high, and the fur of a black fox isn't any different or better. all that difference in price is because once in a blue moon nature gets tired of red and tries black for a change, and people with more money than brains pay the price because it is rare and they can wear something that mighty few others can have. it's fox, just the same, and it will wear out just as quickly as if it were common every-day red. it's a fad. but the saints defind us from any more brains till afther we have the hide av the black gintleman thot jim and alec have seen here in the hollow!"
"money does talk, doesn't it, pat?" chuckled hal. "here's hoping you get both the fox and the long price. by the way, what's a cross fox?"
"the prettiest baste in the woods," returned pat promptly. "he has black legs and underparts, black tail with white tip, and gray head and body with a dark cross on the shoulders. but he's just a sport of the red fox, a variation in between the red and black. a perfect specimen is worth a lot of money, but nowhere near what a black will bring. between the red and all black there are a lot of variations of the cross, and the price varies accordingly. but let's get back to regular fur instead of freaks. have you looked over that price list i brought in, alec?"
alec nodded. "i see otter and fisher are quoted just the same, $15 for no. 1 prime. i think the two otter and the fisher we've got will grade that all right. up here," he continued, turning to the boys, "marten pay us best because they bring us from $6 for no. 2 to $12 for large no. 1 prime and some years more than that. lynx pay pretty nearly as well, when we can get 'em. the trouble is we don't get enough of 'em. we get some foxes and some mink. the latter are rather down now, but some years they are high and pay right well. last and least, but like the pennies that make the dollars, are the muskrats. they're bringing only thirty cents now, but i have seen 'em as high as a dollar.
"in other parts of the country are other furs. coon disna get up as far as this, and arctic and blue fox dinna get as far south. we get some weasel which when pure white is quite worth the trouble of skinning, little as the critters are. ye ken it is the ermine of royalty."
"how about bearskins? i suppose they are worth considerable," said walter, glancing over at spud's prize.
"less than ye will be thinking," replied alec. "yon skin is prime—and will grade as large. what now would ye be thinking it would be bringing me from a fur buyer this minute?"
"fifty dollars," ventured hal.
alec and pat smiled. "what do you say, little doctor?" alec turned to upton.
walter did some quick thinking. he had set in his own mind the same figure hal had given, but he had caught that smile of the two trappers and he suspected that hal was rather wide of the mark. it didn't seem possible to him that such a beautiful great skin could be worth less, but at a venture he cut it in halves. "twenty-five," said he.
"knock ten off of that, and ye will be aboot right," said alec.
"what? only fifteen dollars for that big skin?" hal fairly shouted.
pat laughed outright. "that's all this year. and they never are worth a great deal. you see, for his size even a rat is worth considerable more, and is therefore not to be despised. and when you consider the labor of skinning a big brute like that and then packing out his hide the rats are more to my liking if there be enough of them."
"don't you trap for bears at all?" asked hal. "i had figured on seeing a bear trap and perhaps finding old bruin in one."
pat smiled as he noted the look of disappointment on hal's face. "we don't trap them this time of year, son, because there are none to trap; they're denned up for the winter," he explained. "but you shall have a chance to see a deadfall before you go back. alec built a couple, but it was rather too late in the season. they'll be ready for early spring when bears begin to move again. then i suspect alec will build one or two more, eh, alec?"
"a couple, i guess. i've marked some likely places," was the reply.
"what about steel traps?" asked upton. "i had an idea that most trappers used those almost altogether these days."
by way of reply alec dragged out from under one of the bunks a clanging mass of steel. "heft it," said he briefly, passing it to walter.
"my, but that's heavy!" he exclaimed. "what does it weigh?"
"nineteen pounds," replied alec. "tell me, how would ye like to pack three or four of those in addition to a lot of smaller traps for ten or fifteen miles?"
"not for me!" declared upton. "i begin to see the why of the deadfalls. it's easier to build a few of those than to lug these heavy things around. i didn't suppose they were as heavy as this. are all of 'em like this?"
"no, there are some that weigh only a little over eleven pounds, but those are for small bars. i don't no ways favor 'em myself because, ye ken, i never yet have found a way of being certain what size bar would be stepping in one, leastways not until he was caught. a big feller will sometimes get out of the smaller trap, but a little feller never gets out of the big trap. so i sets only the big ones. this is a no. 5, and big enough for any bars around these parts. there's a bigger one made for grizzly bar and lions and tigers and such like critters, but that weighs forty-two pounds. we've got two of these no. 5's to set in the spring. if i was in good bar country, where the critters are plenty, i'd use more of these, but as long as they ain't plenty and i'm after other fur i'd rather use the deadfall. in the first place it kills the critter, and if he's caught you know right where to find him. he's right there. but if he gets caught in one of these things he may be a couple of hundred yards away and he may be in the next county, which is mighty inconvenient, 'specially if ye've got a lot of traps to tend to."
"how's that? i thought you fastened the traps." hal was plainly puzzled.
"sure we fasten 'em," returned alec, "but do ye no see that if it was to anything solid like a tree the critter would be breaking the trap or the chain, maybe, or tearing himsel' loose? so we cut a log small enough at one end for the ring on the end of the chain to just barely slip over it and down to the middle where it is fastened with a spike. the clog is six or seven feet long and of hard wood. then when mr. bar gets caught he has nothing solid to pull against to tear himself free. he marches off with nineteen pounds of trap and the clog dragging from his foot. the clog catches in the brush and between trees and usually he disna get very far, because the heavy drag tires him. besides that, every time he's pulled up short it must hurt like the mischief and take the heart out of him. sometimes we find where he has stopped to fight the clog. once in a while a swivel breaks or something else gives way and he gets rid of the clog, but still has the trap fast to his foot. then he's likely to dig out for parts unknown. i've known a trapper to camp two or three nights on the trail of a bar that had gone off with a trap before he could catch up with the critter. mostly they will go a ways and then make a bed, lie down a while, get uneasy and move on to do the same thing all over again. sometimes they won't lie in the bed after they've made it, but move on and try again."
sparrer's eyes were bulging. "do youse mean dey really make a bed same as us?" he asked.
"surest thing you know," replied pat. "when a bear dens up for the winter he makes himself comfortable. does it when he's traveling, too. don't know how he got wise to the danger of rheumatiz from sleeping on the bare ground, but he seems to be on all right. breaks a lot of brush and makes a regular bough bed. sometimes he uses rotted wood when it is handy and brush isn't. oh, he's a wise proposition, is mr. bear. if he once gets nipped in a trap and gets away it is a smart trapper who can get him in another."
meanwhile hal had been examining the trap and trying to force down the springs. "i'm blessed if i see how you set one of the things," said he at last.
"i'll show ye, only when it's set ye want to keep away from it. it's more dangerous than a bar himsel'."
he brought forth two screw clamps and adjusted them to the double springs of the traps. by turning thumb-screws the springs were compressed and held so that the jaws of the trap could be opened and the pan set to hold them. the boys noticed that in doing this he worked from underneath, sure sign of the careful and experienced trapper. in the event of the clamps slipping there would be no chance of his hand or arm being caught in the jaws.
"how does the bear get caught?" asked sparrer, to whom traps were an unknown quantity.
"by stepping on that pan," explained pat. "i'll show you."
he removed the clamps and then with a long stick touched the pan. instantly the jaws flew up and closed with a vicious snap, biting into the soft wood so that pull as they would the boys were unable to get the stick out.
"huh!" exclaimed hal, "i'd hate to have that thing get me by the leg! i should think it would break the bone."
"it very likely would unless your leg was pretty well protected. a bear's bones are not so brittle and do not break easily, but once that thing has got a grip it's there to stay," said pat.
"i suppose you cover the trap up so that the bear won't see it," ventured upton.
"right, son. that is just what we do," replied pat. "we cover it with leaves or moss, according to where the set is made."
"where does the bait go?" inquired hal. "do you put it right on the trap or hang it over it?"
"neither," laughed pat. "we build a bait pen of brush or old logs, roofing it over, and set the trap just at the entrance in such a way that mr. bear must step in it in order to get into the pen or cubby where the bait is staked at the rear. sometimes we lay a stick across the entrance close to the trap and six or eight inches from the ground so that the bear will try to step over it and in doing so he will be sure to put one foot in the trap. an old bear who has lost a toe or two in a trap and so has learned his lesson will sometimes tear the bait pen down from the rear and so get the bait. a deadfall is about the only way of catching one of that kind."
"i should think other animals would spring the trap," ventured hal.
"they do sometimes, especially your friend prickly porky the porcupine," replied pat. "but when we are after bear we try to set the trap so that nothing less than a bear will spring it. show 'em the trick, alec."
good-naturedly alec once more set the trap. then he took a small springy stick and fastened it upright in a crack in the floor. then he bent it over until the other end was hooked under the pan of the trap. the spring of it held the pan in place even when considerable weight was placed directly on the pan. "that would allow small animals to pass over it freely, ye see," he explained, "but the weight of a bar would spring it. we do the same thing with other traps, using smaller sticks according to what we are after."
at this point pat went to investigate conditions outside. "hi, you fellows!" he called. "storm's over, and it's time to get busy and dig out. it's been raining, but it's clearing off cold, and by morning there'll be a crust that'll hold a horse. walt, you and hal know where the spring is, so you fellows make a path down to it. the rest of us will shovel out the wood-pile and the storehouse."
"what's the storehouse? there wasn't anything of that kind last fall." hal was all eagerness.
"just a bit of a log shack we put up to keep the meat and supplies in. you'll see it when you get outside. now, everybody to wor-r-rk!" pat flung the door open. a wall of snow faced them.
alec produced a home-made wooden shovel and an old iron one. with these he and pat soon cleared a space in front of the cabin. then the others, armed with snow-shoes and an old slab, went to work with a will and soon smugglers' hollow rang with the laughter and shouts of the merry crew. it was not far to the spring, and the task of digging out and trampling down a path was not difficult. when they finished walter and hal turned for their first good look at the surroundings. it was a wilderness of white broken only by the thin column of smoke from the cabin chimney, and the figures of their comrades busy at the wood-pile and storehouse. the cabin itself was nearly buried in snow, which was more than half-way to the low eaves. it had drifted quite over the little shack where pat and alec were at work. all tracks had been obliterated and for a few minutes it was difficult for them to get their bearings, so changed was the landscape. then one by one they picked out the landmarks they had learned to know so well in the fall, but which now were so changed as to be hardly recognized.
they stood in silence, something very like awe stealing over them as the grim beauty, combined with pitiless strength, of the majestic scene impressed itself upon them.
"just think of a man living here all alone for weeks at a time. that's what i call nerve. i believe i'd go dippy in a week," murmured hal hardly above a whisper as if he were afraid to trust his voice in the great solitude.
"and yet there is something fascinating about it. i can feel the call of it myself," replied upton. "i suppose when one gets used to it it isn't so bad. it's—it's—well, i suppose it's what you would call elemental, and there is something heroic about this battling with the very hills and elements to wrest a living from them. hello! pat's calling us."
they hurried back to the cabin, where pat promptly shoved a pail into the hands of each and ordered them back to the spring for water. when they returned alec had begun preparations for supper.
"this evening," announced pat, "alec will finish his yarn about trapping and then we'll plan for to-morrow. will you fellows have baking-powder biscuit or corn bread for supper?"
"corn bread!" was the unanimous shout.
"corn bread it is then," declared pat. "and how will yez have the murphies?"
"french fried!" cried hal.
"yez be hearing the orders av the gintle-min—corn bread and french fried praties, misther cook," said pat, turning to alec. "i'll be mixing the corn bread whoile ye cut the spuds. the rest av yez can bring in wood and set the table, an' the wan who loafs most gets the least to eat."
at once there was a grand scramble to see who could do the most, in view of such a dire threat.
