The Last of the Chiefs Part 14

But after they had eaten the tongue, brisket, and tenderloin of the two cows, while fresh, these being the tenderest and best parts of the buffalo, they added the rest of the meat to their stores in the Annex. As they had done already in several cases, they jerked it, a most useful operation that observant d.i.c.k had learned when they were with the wagon train.

It took a lot of labor and time to jerk the buffaloes, but neither boy had a lazy bone in him, and time seemed to stretch away into eternity before them. They cut the flesh into long, thin strips, taking it all from the bones. Then all these pieces were thoroughly mixed with salt--fortunately, they could obtain an unlimited supply of salt by boiling out the water from the numerous salt springs in the valley--chiefly by pounding and rubbing. They let these strips remain inside the hides about three hours, then all was ready for the main process of jerking.

Albert had been doing the salting and d.i.c.k meanwhile had been getting ready the frame for the jerking. He drove four forked poles into the ground, in the form of a square and about seven feet apart. The forks were between four and five feet above the ground. On opposite sides of the square, from fork to fork, he laid two stout young poles of fresh, green wood. Then from pole to pole he laid many other and smaller poles, generally about an inch apart. They laid the strips of buffalo meat, taken from their salt bath, upon the network of small poles, and beneath they built a good fire of birch, ash, and oak.

"Why, it makes me think of a smokehouse at home," said Albert.

"Same principle," said d.i.c.k, "but if you let that fire under there go out, Al, I'll take one of those birch rods and give you the biggest whaling you ever had in your life. You're strong enough now to stand a good licking."

Albert laughed. He thought his big brother d.i.c.k about the greatest fellow on earth. But he paid a.s.siduous attention to the fire, and d.i.c.k did so, too. They kept it chiefly a great bed of coals, never allowing the flames to rise as high as the buffalo meat, and they watched over it twenty-four hours. In order to keep this watch, they deserted the cabin for a night, sleeping by turns before the fire under the frame of poles, which was no hardship to them.

The fierce timber wolves came again in the night, attracted by the savory odor of buffalo meat; and once they crept near and were so threatening that Albert, whose turn it was at the watch, became alarmed. He awakened d.i.c.k, and, in order to teach these dangerous marauders a lesson, they shot two of them. Then the shrewd animals, perceiving that the two-legged beasts by the fire carried something very deadly with which they slew at a distance, kept for a while to the forest and out of sight.

After the twenty-four hours of fire drying, the buffalo meat was greatly reduced in weight and bulk, though it was packed as full as ever with sustenance. It was now cured, that is, jerked, and would keep any length of time. While the frame was ready they jerked an elk, two mule deer, a big silver-tip bear that d.i.c.k shot on the mountain side, and many fish that they caught in the lake and the little river. They would scale the fish, cut them open down the back, and then remove the bone. After that the flesh was jerked on the scaffold in the same way that the meat of the buffalo and deer was treated.

Before these operations were finished, the big timber wolves began to be troublesome again. Neither boy dared to be anywhere near the jerking stage without a rifle or revolver, and d.i.c.k finally invented a spring pole upon which they could put the fresh meat that was waiting its turn to be prepared--they did not want to carry the heavy weight to the house for safety, and then have to bring it back again.

While d.i.c.k's spring pole was his own invention, as far as he was concerned, it was the same as that used by thousands of other trappers and hunters. He chose a big strong sapling which Albert and he with a great effort bent down. Then he cut off a number of the boughs high up, and in each crotch fastened a big piece of meat. The sapling was then allowed to spring back into place and the meat was beyond the reach of wolf.

But the wolves tried for it, nevertheless. d.i.c.k awakened Albert the first night after this invention was tried and asked him if he wished to see a ghost dance. Albert, wrapped to his eyes in the great buffalo robe, promptly sat up and looked.

They had filled four neighboring saplings with meat, and at least twenty wolves were gathered under them, looking skyward, but not at the sky--it was the flesh of elk and buffalo that they gazed at so longingly, and delicious odors that they knew a.s.sailed their nostrils.

But the wolf is an enterprising animal. He does not merely sit and look at what he wants, expecting it to come to him. Every wolf in the band knew that no matter how hard and long he might look that splendid food in the tree would not drop down into his waiting mouth. So they began to jump for it, and it was this midnight and wilderness ballet that Albert opened his eyes to watch.

One wolf, the biggest of the lot, leaped. It was a fine leap, and might have won him a championship among his kind, but he did not reach the prize. His teeth snapped together, touching only one another, and he fell. Albert imagined that he could hear a disappointed growl. Another wolf leaped, the chief leaped again, a third, a fourth, and a fifth leaped, and then all began to leap together.

The air was full of flying wolfish forms, going up or coming down. They went up, hearts full of hope, and came down, mouths empty of everything but disappointed foam. Teeth savagely hit teeth, and growls of wrath were abundant. Albert felt a ridiculous inclination to laugh. The whole affair presented its ludicrous aspect to him.

"Did you ever see so much jumping for so little reward?" he whispered to d.i.c.k.

"No, not unless they're taking exercise to keep themselves thin, although I never heard of a fat wolf."

But a wolf does not give up easily. They continued to leap faster and faster, and now and then a little higher than before, although empty tooth still struck empty tooth. Now and then a wolf more p.r.o.ne to complaint than the others lifted up his voice and howled his rage and chagrin to the moon. It was a genuine moan, a long, whining cry that echoed far through the forest and along the slopes, and whenever Albert heard it he felt more strongly than ever the inclination to laugh.

"I suppose that a wolf's woes are as real as our own," he whispered, "but they do look funny and act funny."

"Strikes me the same way," replied d.i.c.k with a grin. "But they're robbers, or would be if they could. That meat's ours, and they're trying to get it."

It was in truth a hard case for the wolves. They were very big and very strong. Doubtless, the selfsame wolf that had been driven away from the Annex by the mountain lion was among them, and all of them were atrociously hungry. It was not merely an odor now, they could also see the splendid food hanging just above their heads. Never before had they leaped so persistently, so ardently, and so high, but there was no reward, absolutely none. Not a tooth felt the touch of flesh. The wolves looked around at one another jealously, but the record was as clean as their teeth. There had been no surrept.i.tious captures.

"Will they keep it up all night?" whispered Albert.

"Can't say," replied d.i.c.k. "We'll just watch."

All the wolves presently stopped leaping and crouched on the earth, staring straight up at the prizes which hung, as ever, most tantalizingly out of reach. The moonlight fell full upon them, a score or more, and Albert fancied that he could see their hungry, disappointed eyes. The spectacle was at once weird and ludicrous. Albert felt again that temptation to laugh, but he restrained it.

Suddenly the wolves, as if it were a preconcerted matter, uttered one long, simultaneous howl, full, alike in its rising and falling note, of pain, anguish, and despair, then they were gone in such swiftness and silence that it was like the instant melting of ghosts into thin air. It took a little effort of will to persuade Albert that they had really been there.

"They've given it up," he said. "The demon dancers have gone."

"Demon dancers fits them," said d.i.c.k. "It's a good name.

Yes, they've gone, and I don't think they'll come back. Wolves are smart, they know when they're wasting time."

When they finished jerking their buffalo meat and venison, d.i.c.k took the fine double-barreled shotgun which they had used but little hitherto, and went down to the lake in search of succulent waterfowl. The far sh.o.r.e of the lake was generally very high, but on the side of the cabin there were low places, little shallow bays, the bottoms covered with gra.s.s, which were much frequented by wild geese and wild ducks, many of which, owing to the open character of the winter, had not yet gone southward.

The ducks, in particular, muscovy, mallard, teal, widgeon, and other kinds, the names of which d.i.c.k did not know, were numerous. They had been molested so little that they were quite tame, and it was so easy to kill them in quant.i.ties that the element of sport was entirely lacking.

d.i.c.k did not fancy shooting at a range of a dozen yards or so into a dense flock of wild ducks that would not go away, and he wished also to save as many as he could of their shot cartridges, for he had an idea that he and his brother would remain in the valley a long time. But both he and Albert wanted good supplies of duck and geese, which were certainly toothsome and succulent, and they were taking a pride, too, in filling the Annex with the best things that the mountains could afford. Hence d.i.c.k did some deep thinking and finally evolved a plan, being aided in his thoughts by earlier experience in Illinois marshes.

He would trap the ducks and geese instead of shooting them, and he and Albert at once set about the task of making the trap.

This idea was not original with d.i.c.k. As so many others have been, he was, in part, and unconscious imitator. He planted in the shallow water a series of hoops, graded in height, the largest being in the deepest water, while they diminished steadily in size as they came nearer to the land. They made the hoops of split saplings, and planted them about four feet apart.

Then the covered all these hoops with a netting, the total length of which was about twenty-five feet. They also faced each hoop with a netting, leaving an aperture large enough for the ducts to enter. It was long and tedious work to make the netting, as this was done by cutting the hide of an elk and the hide of a mule deer into strips and plaiting the strips on the hoops. They then had a network tunnel, at the smaller end of which they constructed an inclosure five or six feet square by means of stout poles which they thrust into the mud, and the same network covering which they used on the tunnel.

"It's like going in at the big end of a horn and coming out at the little one into a cell," said Albert. "Will it work?"

"Work?" replied d.i.c.k. "Of course, it will. You just wait and you'll see."

Albert looked out upon the lake, where many ducks were swimming about placidly, and he raised his hand.

"Oh, foolish birds!" he apostrophized. "Here is your enemy, man, making before your very eyes the snare that will lead you to destruction, and you go on taking no notice, thinking that the sunshine will last forever for you."

"Shut up, Al," said d.i.c.k, "you'll make me feel sorry for those ducks. Besides, you're not much of a poet, anyway."

When the trap was finished they put around the mouth and all along the tunnel quant.i.ties of the gra.s.s and herbs that the ducks seemed to like, and then d.i.c.k announced that the enterprise was finished.

"We have nothing further to do about it," he said, "but to take out our ducks."

It was toward twilight when they finished the trap, and both had been in the cold water up to their knees. d.i.c.k had long since become hardened to such things, but he looked at Albert rather anxiously. The younger boy, however, did not begin to cough. He merely hurried back to the fire, took off his wet leggings, and toasted his feet and legs. Then he ate voraciously and slept like a log the night through. But both he and d.i.c.k went down to the lake the next morning with much eagerness to see what the trap contained, if anything.

It was a fresh winter morning, not cold enough to freeze the surface of the lake, but extremely crisp. The air contained the extraordinary exhilarating quality which d.i.c.k had noticed when they first came into the mountains, but which he had never breathed anywhere else. It seemed to him to make everything sparkle, even his blood, and suddenly he leaped up, cracked his heels together, and shouted.

"Why, d.i.c.k," exclaimed Albert, "what on earth is the matter with you?"

"Nothing is the matter with me. Instead, all's right. I'm so glad I'm alive, Al, old man, that I wanted to shout out the fact to all creation."

"Feel that way myself," said Albert, "and since you've given such a good example, think I'll do as you did."

He leaped up, cracked his heels together, and let out a yell that the mountains sent back in twenty echoes. Then both boys laughed with sheer pleasure in life, the golden morning, and their happy valley. So engrossed were they in the many things that they were doing that they did not yet find time to miss human faces.

As they approached the trap, they heard a great squawking and cackling and found that the cell, as Albert called the square inclosure, contained ten ducks and two geese swimming about in a great state of trepidation. They had come down the winding tunnel and through the apertures in the hoops, but they did not have sense enough to go back the same way. Instead they merely swam around the square and squawked.

"Now, aren't they silly?" exclaimed Albert. "With the door to freedom open, they won't take it."

"I wonder," said d.i.c.k philosophically, "if we human beings are not just the same. Perhaps there are easy paths out of our troubles lying right before us and superior creatures up in the air somewhere are always wondering why we are such fools that we don't see them."

"Shut up, d.i.c.k," said Albert, "your getting too deep. I've no doubt that in our net are some ducks that are rated as uncommonly intelligent ducks as ducks go."