The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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resort of the wild animals, from which they came down to feed along the beach.
“It’s as plain as the nose on a fellow’s face,” said John. “And some of these paths look as if they were a good many years old.”
Indeed, they could trace them out, many of them, worn deep into the moss by the dainty feet of foxes which had travelled the same lines for many years. It was a curious thing, but all these wild animals, even the bears, seemed not to like the work of walking where the footing was soft, so they made paths of their own which they followed from one part of the country to another. On this great Alaskan island nearly every mountain pass had bear trails and fox paths leading down to the valleys along the streams or from one valley over into another. The foxes as well as the bears seemed to find a great deal of their food along the beaches.
As the young native ran along the fox trail the others had difficulty in keeping up with him.
“What’s the matter with him? What’s up, Rob?” panted John, who was a trifle fat for his years. “Why doesn’t he keep in the plain trails?”
“Let him alone,” said Rob. “He may have some idea of his own. See there, he is heading over toward the beach.”
They followed him along the faint trail, dimly outlined at places in the moss, and soon they caught the idea which was in his mind. The path headed toward the beach and then zig-zagged, paralleling it as though some fox had come down and caught sight or scent of something interesting and then had investigated it cautiously. Others had trodden in his foot-prints, and so made this path, which at length straightened out and ran directly to the beach just opposite the place where the dead whale lay.
“Plenty — plenty!” said Skookie, pointing his short finger to the trail and then down to the beach where the carcass of the whale lay. Whether he meant plenty of fox or plenty of food for the foxes made little difference.
“They’re feeding on the whale, now that the boats have gone,” explained Rob. “That is plain. Skookie is just showing us the new trail they have made the last few nights.”
Skookie turned back and began to follow the trail toward the mountain. Without comment the others followed him, and so they ran the faint path back until it climbed directly up the steep bluff, fifty feet in height, and struck a long, flat, higher level, where the foxes all seemed to have established an ancient highway. Several trails here crossed, although each held its own way and did not merge with the others; as though there were bands of foxes which came from one locality and did not mingle with the others.
“Now, what made him come up here?” asked John, whose shorter legs were beginning to tire of this long walk. “We’re getting a good way from home.”
“Just wait,” advised Jesse. “We’ll learn something yet, I shouldn’t wonder. Skookie’s after something; that’s plain.”
Indeed, the young Aleut, not much farther on, began now to stoop and examine the trail closely. At length he pointed his brown finger at a certain spot near the trail. The others bent over the place.
“Something’s been here,” said Jesse. The moss had been dug out and put back again.
Skookie smiled and walked on a little farther and showed them several other such places a few yards apart. He held up the fingers of one hand.
“Five klipsie,” he said, and then swept an arm around toward the face of the mountains, remarking: “My peoples come here.”
“Oh,” said Rob; “he means that here is where his family come to set their klipsie traps for foxes. I suppose these places are where the same klipsies were set five different times. I have heard that when they catch a fox in one place they always take up their trap and move it on a little way so that the other foxes may not be frightened away by the smell of the dead fox or the trap.”
“I wonder,” said Jesse, “if any fox would have good fur this late in the spring.”
“He might,” said Rob, “if he had been living all the time up in the mountains near the snow; but as the natives trap a good deal along the beach, I suppose they took up their traps some time ago. They never like to take fur unless it is good, of course.”
“Anyhow,” said Jesse, “I shouldn’t mind trying once for a fox. We might get a good one. I’ve heard they catch foxes sometimes — silver-grays or blacks, you know — that are worth three or four hundred dollars.”
“Or even more,” added Rob; “but that is when they’re very prime, and when they bring the top of the market.”
Skookie looked from one to the other, but finally made up his own mind. He led out on the way toward the barabbara, where very methodically he set to work carrying out his purpose. He rummaged among the klipsie butts in the back part of the hut until he got one to suit him, and then without any hesitation led the way a few hundred yards distant from the hut where, parting the grass, he disclosed the cache or hiding-place where the owners of the klipsies had secreted the traps; they, in their cunning, not wishing to leave the entire trap in the possession of any stranger who might come to the house.
Fumbling in this heap of narrow sticks, each of which was about as long as a boy’s arm, Skookie at last picked out one which suited him. They discovered that the end of it was armed with four or five spikes apparently made of old nails hammered to a point and filed into a barb.
Skookie now took this arm of his klipsie to where he had left the butt or hub of the trap, and he loosened up the heavy, braided cord of sinew which passed from end to end through the butt. He pushed the butt end of the arm in between these sinews so that pulling it sidewise twisted the sinews. Then he drove tight the wedges at each end of the hub, so straining the sinews tightly about the arm of the trap. Thus, as the boys readily saw, a great force was exerted when the arm of the trap was pulled back.
“That is what they call ‘torsion,’ I think,” said Rob. “It is like a gate-spring which pushes hard when you twist it. Look at those sinews — thick as your thumb — and even one little sinew is strong enough to hang an ox!”
Skookie went on with his work until he thought the strain on the arm was sufficient. Then he pulled the arm back and caught it under a slight notch which was cut in the side of the hub, which itself was open on one side to allow the passage of the arm. When the trap was thus set it lay flat on the ground, and Skookie motioned the boys to keep away from it — something which all were willing to do, for the barbed arm of the klipsie resembled nothing so much as a fanged serpent with its head back ready to strike a terrible blow.
“Natives get caught in these traps sometimes,” said Rob; “so the old trappers tell me. Sometimes they get crippled for life. You see, these iron points here strike a man just about at the knee joint, and that’s pretty bad when there is no doctor around.”
Skookie, going ahead with his work, fumbled in his pocket and fished out a piece of hide cord, which he measured off to a certain length between his arms; then, picking up a bit of stick, he whittled out a pointed peg and attached one end of his cord to this, while he arranged the other so that it would control the trigger which held the arm in place on the farther side of the klipsie bow. Now he stretched out his cord and pushed the peg into the earth as though it crossed a fox path, and made a motion of a fox walking along and touching his leg against the cord. To do this he took a long stick instead of using his own limb.
Whang! went the klipsie, the fanged arm whirling over so fast that the eye could hardly follow it, and burying its points in the ground. Skookie laughed and danced up and down, showing how it certainly would have killed a fox had the latter been there.
“Come on,” said John; “let’s go set it somewhere.”
“All light!” said Skookie, who understood a great many words from their apparent connection. He took up his trap, with the hub under his arm, and headed off up the beach toward the spot where they had first seen the fox trail two or three hours before.
Following along the faint trail for some distance, but taking