"Sport's good, but I'm agin this yer wholesale killin' an' cruelty. Steel traps, light-weight bullets an' repeatin' guns ain't human. I tell ye it's them as makes all the sufferin'."
This was a long speech for Caleb, but it was really less connected than here given. Yan had to keep him going with occasional questions. This he followed up.
"What do you think about bows and arrows, Mr. Clark?"
"I wouldn't like to use them on big game like Bear and Deer, but I'd be glad if shotguns was done away with and small game could be killed only with arrows. They are either sure death or clear miss. There's no cripples to get away and die. You can't fire an arrow into a flock of birds and wipe out one hundred, like you can with one of them blame scatterguns. It's them things that is killing off all the small game. Some day they'll invent a scattergun that is a pump repeater like them new rifles, and when every fool has one they'll wonder where all the small game has gone to.
"No, sir, I'm agin them. Bows and arrows is less destructful an' calls for more Woodcraft an' give more sport—that is, for small game. Besides, they don't make that awful racket, an' you know who is the party that owns the shot, for every arrow is marked."
Yan was sorry that Caleb did not indorse the arrow for big game, too.
The Trapper was well started now; he seemed ready enough with information to-day, and Yan knew enough to "run the rapids on the freshet."
"How do you make a ketchalive?"
"What for?"
"Oh, Mink."
"They ain't fit to catch now, and the young ones need the mothers."
"I wouldn't keep it. I only want to make a drawing."
"Guess that won't harm it if you don't keep it too long. Have ye any boards? We used to chop the whole thing out of a piece of Balsam wood or White Pine, but the more stuff ye find ready-made the easier it is. Now I'll show you how to make a ketchalive if ye'll promise me never to miss a day going to it while it is set."
The boys did not understand how any one could miss a day in visiting a place of so much interest, and readily promised.
So they made a ketchalive, or box-trap, two feet long, using hay wire to make a strong netting at one end.
"Now," said the trapper, "that will catch Mink, Muskrat, Skunk, Rabbit—'most anything, 'cording to where you put it and how you bait it."
"Seems to me the Wakan Rock will be a good place to try."
So the trap was baited with a fish head firmly lashed on the wire trigger.
In the morning, as Yan approached, he saw that it was sprung. A peculiar whining and scratching came from it and he shouted in great excitement: "Boys, boys, I've got him! I've got the Mink!"
They seized the trap and held it cautiously up for the sunlight to shine through the bars, and there saw to their disgust that they had captured only the old gray Cat. As soon as the lid was raised she bounded away, spitting and hissing, no doubt to hurry home to tell the Kittens that it was all right, although she had been away so long.
XV
A Visit from Raften
Sam, I must have another note-book. It's no good getting up a new 'massacree' of Whites, 'cause there ain't any note-books there, but maybe your father would get one the next time he drove to Downey's Dump. I suppose I'll have to go on a peace party to ask him."
Sam made no answer, but looked and listened out toward the trail, then said: "Talk of the er—Angels, here comes Da."
When the big man strode up Yan and Guy became very shy and held back. Sam, in full war-paint, prattled on in his usual style.
"Morning, Da; I'm yer kid. Bet ye'r in trouble an' want advice or something."
Raften rolled up his pendulous lips and displayed his huge front tusks in a vast purple-and-yellow grin that set the boys' hearts at ease.
"Kind o' thought you'd be sick av it before now."
"Will you let us stay here till we are?" chimed in Sam, then without awaiting the reply that he did not want, "Say, Da, how long is it since there was any Deer around here?"
"Pretty near twenty years, I should say."
"Well, look at that now," whispered the Woodpecker.
Raften looked and got quite a thrill for the dummy, half hidden in the thicket, looked much like a real deer.
"Don't you want to try a shot?" ventured Yan.
Raften took the bow and arrow and made such a poor showing that he returned them with the remark. "Sure a gun's good enough for me," then, "Ole Caleb been around since?"
"Old Caleb? I should say so; why, he's our stiddy company."
"'Pears fonder o'you than he is of me."
"Say, Da, tell us about that. How do you know it was Caleb shot at you?"
"Oh, I don't know it to prove it in a coort o' law, but we quarr'led that day in town after the Horse trade an' he swore he'd fix me an' left town. His own stepson, Dick Pogue, stood right by and heard him say it; then at night when I came along the road by the green bush I was fired at, an' next day we found Caleb's tobacco pouch and some letters not far away. That's about all I know, an' all I want to know. Pogue served him a mean trick about the farm, but that's none o' my business. I 'spect the old fellow will have to get out an' scratch for himself pretty soon."
"He seems kind-hearted," said Yan.
"Ah, he's got an awful temper, an' when he gets drunk he'd do anything. Other times he's all right."
"Well, how is it about the farm?" Sam asked. "Doesn't he own it?"
"No, I guess not now. I don't r'aly know. I only hear them say. Av coorse, Saryann ain't his own daughter. She's nowt o' kin, but he has no one else, and Dick was my hired man—a purty slick feller with his tongue; he could talk a bird off a bush; but he was a good worker. He married Sary and persuaded the old man to deed them the place, him to live in comfort with them to the end of his days. But once they got the place, 'twas aisy to see that Dick meant to get rid o' Caleb, an' the capsheaf was put last year, about his Dog, old Turk. They wouldn't have him 'round. They said he was scaring the hens and chasing sheep, which is like enough, for I believe he killed wan ov my lambs, an' I'd give ten dollars to have him killed—making sure 'twas him, av coorse. Rather than give up the Dog, Caleb moved out into the shanty on the creek at the other end of the place. Things was better then, for Dick and Saryann let up for awhile an' sent him lots o' flour an' stuff, but folks say they're fixin' it to put the old man out o' that and get shet of him for good. But I dunno; it's none o' my business, though he does blame me for putting Dick up to it."
"How's the note-book?" as Raften's eye caught sight of the open sketch-book still in Yan's hand.
"Oh, that reminds me," was the reply. "But what is this?" He showed the hoof-mark be had sketched. Raften examined it curiously.
"H-m, I dunno'; 'pears to me moighty loike a big Buck. But I guess not; there ain't any left."
"Say, Da," Sam persisted, "wouldn't you be sore if you was an old man robbed and turned out?"
"Av coorse; but I wouldn't lose in a game of swap-horse, an' then go gunnin' after the feller. If I had owt agin him I'd go an' lick him or be licked, an' take it all good-natured. Now that's enough. We'll talk about something else."