With Trapper Jim in the North Woods Part 3

Immediately a couple of s.h.a.ggy dogs bounded in and began barking furiously as they jumped up at their master, showing all the symptoms of great joy.

"Sho, one'd think they hadn't seen me for a whole month, instead of only a few hours," laughed Trapper Jim, as he fondled the dogs.

Then the five boys in turn were introduced, as gravely as though Ajax and Don might be human beings.

"They're quick to catch on," remarked Trapper Jim. "They know now you're all friends of mine, and you can depend on 'em to stand by you through thick and thin."

"What are they good for?" asked Bandy-legs.

"This smaller one is reckoned the best 'c.o.o.n dog in the woods," replied the other, patting the head of Don. "If there's a striped-tail in the district and I set him to working, he'll get him up a tree sooner or later. And when the animal is knocked to the ground Don knows just how to get the right grip on his throat."

"But his ears are all slit, and his head looks like it had been scratched and gouged a whole lot," remarked Steve.

"Well, old 'c.o.o.ns, they've got pretty sharp claws sometimes, ain't they, Don?" continued the old trapper. "And in the excitement a dog can't always just defend himself, eh, old fellow! They will get a dig in once in a while, spite of us."

Don barked three times, just as if he understood every single word his master was saying.

"And how about Ajax?" Bandy-legs continued.

"He's a general all-around dog, and ain't afraid of anything that walks.

Why, boys, I've known him to tackle and kill the biggest lynx ever seen in these parts, and that's something few dogs could do."

"What's a lynx?" asked Bandy-legs.

"A species of wildcat that sometimes strays down this way across the Canada border," replied the trapper. "Generally speaking, he's bigger'n the other and fierce as all get out. Fact is, I believe I'd sooner have a panther tackle me than a full-grown, ugly tempered lynx. Some people call it the 'woods devil,' and they hit it pretty near right, too."

"Hasn't a lynx got some sort of mark about him that makes him look different from the ordinary bobcat?" asked Owen.

"Why, yes," replied Trapper Jim, "there's some difference in the beasts; but I reckon the little ta.s.sels that kinder adorn the ears of the lynx mark him most of all."

"Looks like a full house, now," remarked Max, who had not hesitated to make up with both the dogs, being very fond of their kind.

"Oh, while I have company Ajax and Don'll have to sleep in the shed or lean-to outside," remarked the master of the dogs. "Of course, when I'm here all by myself they stay indoors with me. And I tell you, lads, they make a fellow feel less lonely in the long winter days and nights. Dogs are men's best friends--that is, the right kind of dogs. They become greatly attached to you, too."

Toby just then seemed to become greatly excited. Finding it difficult to express himself as he wanted, he pointed straight at Steve, and was heard to say:

"A-a-attached to you! S-s-sure they do; S-s-steve knows! Saw one attached to h-h-him once. Wouldn't h-h-hardly let go."

At that there were loud shouts, and even Steve himself could hardly keep from grinning at the recollection of the picture Toby's words recalled.

"'Spose you fellers never _will_ get over that affair," he remarked, as he put his hand behind him, just as if after all these months he still felt a pain where the dog had bitten him. "Cost me a good pair of trousers, too, in the bargain. It was a bulldog," he added, turning toward Trapper Jim, "and he was so much attached to me that he followed me halfway 'over a seven-foot fence. Would have gone the whole thing only the cloth gave way and he lost his grip."

"Well, that showed a warm, generous nature," remarked Trapper Jim; "some dogs are marked that way."

"This one was," declared Steve. "But I got even with the critter."

"How was that?" asked the other, looking a little serious; for, himself a lover of dogs, he never liked to hear of one being abused.

"I got me one of those little liquid pistols, you know, and laid for my old enemy," Steve continued; "he saw me pa.s.sing by and came bouncing out to try my other leg. But he changed his mind in a big hurry. And, say, you just ought to 'a' heard him yelp when he turned around and faced the other way."

"You didn't blind the poor beast, I hope?" remarked Jim.

"Oh, nothin' to speak of," said Steve, gayly. "He was all right the next day. Ammonia smarts like fun for awhile, but it goes off. But, listen, whenever I pa.s.sed that house, if old Beauty was sitting on the steps like he used to do, as soon as he glimpsed me, would you believe it, he'd turn tail and run quick for the back yard and watch me around the comer of the house."

"You had him tamed, all right," said Max.

"We called it an even break, and let it go at that," said Steve.

When the boys began to yawn, and betrayed unmistakable evidences of being sleepy, their host showed them how he had arranged it so that they could all sleep comfortably.

There were only two wooden bunks, one above the other. Trapper Jim was to occupy the lower one, and turn about, the five boys were to have the other.

This necessitated four of them sleeping on the floor each night. But as there were plenty of soft furs handy, and the boys announced that they always enjoyed being able to stretch out on the ground, Jim knew he would have no trouble on this score.

So the first night pa.s.sed.

Perhaps none of them slept as well as usual. This nearly always turns out to be the case with those who go into the wilderness for a spell. The change from home comforts and soft beds to the hards.h.i.+ps that attend roughing it can be set down as the princ.i.p.al cause.

However, nothing serious occurred during the night calculated to disturb them. It is true Toby did fall out of the upper berth once, landing on a couple of the others with a thump, but then such a little matter was hardly worth mentioning between friends.

And they could understand how Toby must be dreaming of his recent trouble, as he hung over that terrible abyss by his hold on a single root.

Perhaps the root gave way in his dreams, and Toby made a frantic effort to save himself.

Morning came at last.

Breakfast was cooked and eaten with considerable eagerness, for immediately it was over the boys expected to accompany their host while he made his first tour of the season, intending to set a few traps in places that had been marked as favorable to the carrying out of his business.

They could hardly wait for Trapper Jim to get through his ch.o.r.es.

Presently Jim went over several lots of hanging traps and selected those he wished to use on the first day.

How he seemed to handle certain ones fondly, as though they carried with them memories of stirring events in the dim past.

They all looked pretty much alike to the boys, but Jim undoubtedly had certain little familiar marks by means of which he recognized each individual trap. He mentioned some of their peculiar histories as he picked out his "lucky" traps.

"This one held two mink at a pop twice now, something I never knew to happen before," he remarked.

"And this old rusty one was lost a whole season. When I happened to find it, there was a piece of bone and some fur between the jaws, showing that the poor little critter had gnawed off its own foot rather than die of starvation. Made me fell bad, that did. A good trapper seldom allows such a thing to happen."

"Do mink really set themselves free that way?" asked Owen.

"They will, if given half a chance," was Jim's reply. "That's one reason we always try to fix it so that mink, otter, muskrats, fisher, and all animals that are trapped along the edge of streams manage to drown themselves soon after they are caught. It saves the pelt from being injured, too, by their crazy efforts to break away."

"And what of that trap over there? You seem to be taking mighty good care of it," said Max, who was deeply interested in everything the trapper was doing.

"Well, I hadn't ought to complain about that trap," came the answer.

"Year before last it caught me a silver fox, as the black fox is called.