by Terry Grosz
Satisfied with their labors, Josh and Gabe moved all the packs into the cabin for safekeeping while the rest of the men hung all the horse and mule tack in the roofed lean-tos out of the rain and high enough up so the resident porcupines could not chew the sweat-stained leather for the salt it offered. Then Jim, Al, One- Shot and Big-Eye began scouting out the closest beaver waters and “making meat” on the close-at-hand herds of buffalo. Soon meat racks were hung with hundreds of pounds of rich buffalo meat strips as they dried in the sun under a low heat, smoking fire, now tended by Josh and Gabe. Once that meat was sufficiently dried, it was placed into tanned deerskin bags and hung from the cabin’s rafters for later use when trapping was in full swing. Jim and One-Shot Sutta then collected up all the group’s beaver, otter, and muskrat traps. Those were soon smoked under a smudge fire to get rid of the man smell.
When finished, Big-Eye Ed Collins and Albert broke open several nearby beaver dams and set eight of the recently descented traps to catch beaver coming into the area to repair the breaks. From those trapped beaver, they collected castoreum, an oily secretion from the recently trapped beaver’s castors, to be used to scent the trap sites when trapping finally began.
Sensing a readiness in the men with the changing colder weather and the beaver getting closer to their prime, the six men ventured forth some two miles from their cabin site with six mules pulling travois. Working in on a small herd of feeding buffalo, the men soon had them shot into a “surround” or “stand,” a situation in which confused animals, not seeing any danger from man and only gun smoke from behind a small ridge, just dumbly stood in the line of fire until many were killed. Soon, fourteen buffalo cows lay dead or dying, as the rest of the herd, smelling so much fresh blood, finally lumbered off to quieter, less deadly pastures.
Craving mineral salts, the first thing the men did once on the field of slaughter after the shooting had subsided, was open up one fat cow, cut out her liver, pour her green-staining bile over the organ, and then ate it raw. Finished with the first, another cow was cut open and the same act committed until the men had their fill of the warm, bile-salted liver. Then the cutting, gutting, and loading of meat and hides began in earnest.
Once the six mules’ travois were loaded, three of the trappers headed home with the meat while the other three continued deboning out the meat and skinning out the buffalo for their valuable hides. When the three men returned with the empty travois, they were quickly reloaded with the last of the meat and hides. The killing field and its scraps were then left to the ever- skulking wolves, clever coyotes, crows, ravens, and magpies for a noisy feast.
As for Josh and Gabe’s new .52-caliber, U.S. 1803 rifles, they had dropped a buffalo each time their triggers were pulled. As it turned out, they were everything Sam Hawken back in St. Louis had said they would be when it came to killing the largest of beasts with a single well-placed shot. They also discovered that Elliott One-Shot Sutta was just that. Every time he pulled the trigger on his heavy rifle, a buffalo dropped to run no more. Both Josh and Gabe, being excellent shooters themselves, were glad One-Shot was on their side instead of that of the local Blackfeet or in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company competition.
Back at their cabin, the low heat, heavy smoking fires were once again ignited with the use of fire steels and flint rings. Soon numerous strips of rich buffalo meat were hanging on the smoking racks curing into nutritious jerky. Several of the hams and back straps were also heavily salted and peppered and then hung from the cabin’s rafters to further dry after being smoked. Those would soon cure into specialty meats for later use when large pots of beans and buffalo were boiled up for supper during the upcoming long winter months.
While the hams and back straps were being salted for curing, Gabe took several dozen feet of fresh, smaller intestines from the buffalo to a nearby creek, turned them inside out, and rinsed them off. Returning to the outside campfire, he filled the intestines full of salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, fresh wild onions previously dug by Jim and Albert, ripe plums, chopped heart and liver, and handfuls of fresh watercress from the nearby creek. Then they were sewed shut and thus began the slow roasting process of boudins by their fire. As they slow-roasted and filled the air full of great food smells, Gabe staked a dozen thick slabs of tender back strap steaks on green willow sticks, hanging them near the fire to slow roast. Then out came the Dutch ovens and soon three of them were cooking biscuits as they sat on hot coals alongside the campfire. Over the fire on a long, iron rod held by forked andirons, hung a sooted, large coffee pot full of creek water merrily boiling away. Adjacent on a flat rock at the edge of the fire, green coffee beans slowly roasted. After turning them several times and finally finding them thoroughly roasted, Gabe ground the cooked beans on a flat cooking stone with a smooth river rock. When coarsely ground, those grounds were tossed into the now madly boiling hot water in the coffee pot. At the edge of the fire, a pot of beans that had been soaking since daylight was also now merrily bubbling away. Mixed with wild onions and “leaf lard”—delicate fat taken from the buffalo’s intestines—they were soon throwing wisps of delicious aromas into the now-cooling mountain air. Aromas for everyone to savor whenever they passed the bubbling cast iron bean pot and cooking fire.
A short time later, Gabe said, “Supper, you guys. If you don’t come running, I will throw it to the wolves.” As suspected, the wolves went hungry when it came to eating of any of those great smelling and tasting supper trappings that fine high mountain evening...
CHAPTER SIX: FALL TRAPPING AND BLACKFEET PROBLEMS
The next morning at dawn found Jim and Al hurriedly loading three of the group’s pack mules. On those animals went six sacks of traps holding six traps per sack, extra rifles, heavy axes to drive trap stakes, rolls of trap cord, and jerky. Then they saddled six riding horses, one for each man. Collateral to that activity, Josh and Gabe staked out slabs of fresh buffalo meat alongside the roaring campfire, made Dutch oven biscuits, and tossed handfuls of freshly roasted and crushed coffee beans into their ever-present steaming coffee pot. Then One-Shot Sutta and Big-Eye Ed Collins made sure all the possibles sacks were amply loaded with extra flints, fire steels, tins of percussion caps, extra balls, full powder horns, cut patches of linen to seat the rifle balls, whetstones and extra knives.
When Gabe called the men to breakfast, they didn’t need to be called twice, as they quickly seated themselves around the campfire and hungrily helped themselves. For the next few moments, the men were lost in eating a fine meal with the heat of a fire warming their fronts and the cold morning air chilling their backsides.
Mouthing a too-hot-to-eat biscuit, Jim Johnson said, “I want you, Al and Gabe, to trap together in the waters around camp for the next week until Gabe gets the hang of this beaver trappin’ and skinnin’ thing. Make sure he leams where and how to make his sets and the proper way to skin them fer the best price when we take them to Fort Raymond fer trade. In the process, make sure the two of you keep a sharp eye peeled fer fresh otter slides. Them pelts always bring top price at the traders and make sure your sets fer them critters are sech that they don’t get away once trapped. They are smart, strong critters so make sure your sets are done right and they don’t escape. Also, make sure the two of you keep a sharp eye out fer them damn pesky Blackfeet. Iffen you don’t, your hair will be hanging on some young buck’s lodgepole afore sundown. Lisa has them Blackfeet all riled up with his selective trading practices. That practice is getting them sure damn nasty at being left out from all the trades of rifles, powder, lead, and sech. Course, you trade them devils those things and they jest up and kill all the friendlies and trappers in their neck of the woods so kain’t really blame Lisa for what he does. So, you best keep a sharp eye peeled and your smoke sticks handy at all times. Iffen you don’t, they kin come at you fast as a sow griz iffen you are not prepared. Being close to camp, the two of you should finish first havin’ the shortest distance to go and can git back in time to hoop your skins a
nd start our evening meal. If the two of you ain’t here when the rest of us get back, then we will attend to supper’s fixin’s.
“I will take Josh with me and the two of us will work northeast on the Musselshell and do the same in the leamin’ thing. Then once he teams up with his brother, they kin pull the same load as the rest of us.
“Big-Eye, you and One-Shot need to work to the south and east on the Musselshell and see what those trappin’s will bring. Last year, trappin’s in that area brought us a fortune and I am hoping the same goes fer this year as well. Jest remember that all of us need to keep a sharp eye peeled for any sign of them Blackfeet. Especially for any war parties or thievin’ groups of horse stealin’ young bucks out to make mischief or a name for themselves. Keep in mind that they will not only lift youm hair but will steal our trappin’s or traps iffen given jest half a chance. If you cut any sign of those bucks working in your area in numbers, you need to skedaddle back to camp in a round-about-way then and wait fer the rest of us. Be sure when you do that you don’t leave any more of a trail than you haff to. Iffen it gets so bad them Injuns are hanging on our every footprint, we will trap as a group of six and then jest let them try to git in our ways,” he continued coldly.
The men listened to Jim’s words of wisdom, realizing to look and not see would mean someone would not live through the next sunset. Finishing up their breakfast, the men attended to their last-minute details, finished their calls of nature, and then headed for their horses. With a quiet wave of their hands to each other for good luck, off the men went into their next set of frontier adventures.
Throughout that day, Gabe watched Al intently as he was shown the ways of a Mountain Man and fur trapper. He observed that Al constantly watched the skies around him as if making sure the weather wouldn’t turn on him and make life wet or miserable. Then Al made every effort to reduce their “human print” evidence as they moved in and around the beaver-rich trapping areas. This was done by walking in water and across rocky points or over dense squaw carpet—low growing mats of plants—whenever possible when they moved. This they did in order to conceal their tracks from unwanted eyes. Then once an area was to be trapped, Al would sit on his horse for the longest time examining the terrain around him for any sign of danger before he dismounted with a trap in one hand and his rifle in the other. Gabe observed that Al closely examined the soft ground on the banks looking for the telltale tracks of the lordly and fearsome grizzly and constantly smelled the air as if looking to “wind” one of the foul-smelling beasts hiding or sleeping nearby in a day bed along the waterways before it winded him. Then with hand signals and quiet whispers, Al showed Gabe how to recognize the difference between recent beaver and river otter sign.
First, Gabe was shown freshly cut trees next to the banks or lying a short distance from the water. Then he was shown corresponding wet or recently used muddy slides. Next, he was taught to look for beaver or otter tracks in the soft mud or freshly cut limbs with the characteristic rotational beaver chew marks. That was followed with lessons on egg-shaped, brown droppings, beaver houses out in the ponds, beaver tree limb caches stuck into the mud in the deep ends of the ponds to be eaten later, parts of dead fish left uneaten by the otter on the bank, floating logs or sticks, or the actual swimming beaver or otter themselves. Such were the signs pointed out to the novice Gabe at every turn and opportunity.
When it came time to set one of the six traps characteristically carried by a Mountain Man, Gabe paid very close attention. Six traps because six beaver carcasses were all a horse wanted to carry back if it was done that way and that number was a load for a trapper to skin and hoop when he returned at the end of the day. Plus, the weight of six heavy beaver traps were all one wanted to tote around by day’s end as well.
In the actual trapping of the critters, Al located a well-used area or the end of a beaver slide as it entered the water. Then he placed the trap at the end of the slide where it entered the pond in about four inches of water. After setting the trap, Al would take his hand and swirl it in the surrounding water, stirring up the bottom sediment until a thin film of silt concealed the trap. Then taking several drops of castoreum from his bottle, he would daub it on a stick that had been stuck into the bank hanging out just over the pan of the trap. Scent posting that way allowed for a curious beaver to swim to the lure hanging over the pan of the trap, stand up in the shallow water, grab the stick, and investigate the new beaver smell. In so doing, the critter would more than likely place one of his feet in the trap and be caught.
Continuing the trap setting process, Al slowly walked out into the deeper water until he carefully came to the end of the trap chain. There he would take a piece of cord that he carried and tie the trap ring at the end of the chain onto a long wooden stake. Then once again, careful to not disturb the trap set earlier, he drove the wooden stake holding the trap ring deeply into the bottom of the pond. That way if the trapped beaver in its struggles managed to pull the stake from the bottom, the stake would still be tied to the valuable trap. If an unusually large trapped beaver pulled up the stake and swam off with it, the trap would still remain secured to the now-cumbersome floating stake— some beaver could weigh up to one hundred pounds. That way, the trapper could many times locate the escaped beaver still tied to the trap chain by the floating stake.
Lastly, Gabe learned that by running the length of the trap chain out into deeper water before it was staked, the beaver, once caught, would swim from the shallows into the deeper water until it hit the end of the chain. There he would keep swimming until he was exhausted and finally drown at the end of the trap chain due to the heavy weight of the trap weighing the beaver down.
When checking his absent trap in the shallows, the trapper would go to his stake in the deeper water and retrieve his trap and the dead beaver. However, if more beaver were still in the area, the dead beaver would be removed and trap reset. Then several more drops of fresh castoreum would be applied to the lure stick hanging out over the pan of the trap, and the trapper was ready to move on to the next site. This process was then repeated until Al had set all six of his traps.
Then he signaled for Gabe to dismount and give it a try. Gabe emulated Al’s every observed action as he walked the banks of the river, feeder streams, and beaver ponds looking for sign. Staying cautious, looking for signs of a grizzly or band of Blackfeet as Al had taught him, Gabe stopped at a likely looking beaver trapping site. Following Al’s previous examples, Gabe made his first beaver set. Turning, he could see the look of satisfaction written all over Al’s face over the actions of his young pupil. Continuing, Gabe set his remaining five traps to Al’s satisfaction and then remounted his horse. With that, Al took the lead and the two of them carefully, ever-mindful of the potential bear and Indian problems, scouted out the next day’s trap set sites.
Stopping on a small ridge in a stand of aspens where they could look all around for any signs of danger without being seen while watching their back trail, the two men quietly enjoyed several sticks of buffalo jerky and a drink from a nearby spring. While there, Al warned Gabe never to be far from his rifle in Blackfeet country, and while one man was distracted in getting a drink or whatever, the other was to remain on constant alert for any sign of danger. Additionally, he instructed Gabe to always quickly reload his rifle after it had been fired in case there was more of the initial problem in the area. He also taught Gabe to always carry a spare rifle close at hand on his packhorse for immediate retrieval after he had shot out his primary rifle in case the danger continued to close at hand for a quick re-load.
In between beaver trapping and Indian country survival lessons, Al spent time pointing out beneficial plants for eating or use as medicinals to Gabe. He also shared favorite hiding spots along the Musselshell in case they were surprised by Blackfeet and had to “go to ground” to avoid discovery.
Then it was back to their previous beaver trap sets in the early afternoon to see if they had any “takers.” Sure as shootin�
�, many of the previously set traps had a dead beaver in them. A tribute to the richness of their chosen trapping area, thought Gabe. Removing all the dead beaver, the traps were reset and the lure sticks freshened with castoreum once again.
After running their trap line, Al chose a high piece of ground where they could watch for signs of danger without being seen and then the next trapper’s lesson began. Removing the dead beaver carcasses from their heavily loaded packhorse, he showed Gabe how to properly skin the beaver so that only a round skin remained. He also showed Gabe how to save the tail from each animal for later smoking. An item to be made later into a rich and fatty soup come winter when the men were weathered in and confined to their cabin. Al further advised Gabe that by skinning the beaver away from their cabin, they would reduce the chance of anyone finding their home site through the discovery of a pile of close-at-hand carcasses, a pile of carcasses that were usually discovered first by birds and then followed by the land’s flesh- eaters. When those animals discovered such a rich bounty, it was usually only a short period of time before others, like Indians, discovered the cache of carcasses as well. Then it was just a short backtrack to the trapper’s cabin and possibly trouble in the form of a property theft when they were gone or a fight. He also pointed out that by skinning the carcasses in the field, it would lighten up the loads their pack animals would have to carry, especially in case they had to run from a band of hostile Indians. A packhorse, loaded with numerous heavy, wildly swinging beaver carcasses, would not be one that could outrun hotly pursuing Indians. Lastly, by skinning the beaver away from their sets, that precluded surprising a carcass-feeding grizzly in their immediate trapping area when they went back to check their traps the following day.