The Gun Club Boys of Lakeport

“Well, what did you do to him?” asked Link, impatiently.

“Do? Didn’t do nuthin’.”

“You didn’t! What did the bear do?”

“Rolled over on his head, and walked off.”

“Teddy, are you going crazy? A bear wouldn’t do that.”

“He did, I tell you.”

“He couldn’t have been very savage.”

“I don’t know about that. He had a leather muzzle on, and a chain around his neck.”

“A tame bear!” screamed Harry, and began to laugh. “Oh, that’s the best yet. Link, I guess you are sold.”

“Was it a tame bear?” asked Link, weakly.

“Sure. He could dance, and roll over on his head, and do lots of stunts,” went on Teddy, and now a broad grin crept over his freckled face.

“Teddy, you’re the worst I ever met,” groaned Link, and then after the laughter had subsided he added: “I’ll get square for that. Just you wait and see!”

CHAPTER XXI

THE FIGHT OF THE PINE MARTENS

“Now, boys,” said Joel Runnell on the following morning, after all of the young hunters had enjoyed a good night’s rest, “I’m going to get you at something new.”

“What is it?” queried several, in chorus.

“So far all the game we have had has either been caught by a hook and line or brought down with a gun. Now I’m going to show you how to set traps for rabbits and other small animals, and also how to spear some big fish through a hole in the ice.”

“That’s the talk!” cried Joe. “I’ve been wanting to know something about traps for years.”

“Well, a small trap isn’t much of a thing to make,” answered the old hunter.

“I know how to make one kind of a rabbit trap,” came from Bart. “My uncle showed me how to make it.”

“There are a good many kinds of traps, aren’t there?” asked Fred.

At this Joel Runnell smiled.

“I should say so, my boy. I can make at least a dozen kinds, and I once knew a hunter from Canada who boasted of being able to make forty-six different kinds of traps and death-falls.”

“Gracious! that man hadn’t much use for a gun,” was Harry’s comment.

“It’s a good thing to know something about traps,” went on the old hunter. “There might come a time when you were out in the woods and mighty hungry, without a single charge of powder left. In such a case a trap may keep you from starving to death.”

The old hunter told them that he would first set a few rabbit and squirrel traps, and after that a death-fall for larger animals.

“I think I can locate the run of the rabbits on this island pretty well,” said he.

A good hot breakfast was had, and as soon as it was over Teddy insisted on washing up the few dishes which had been used. Then off they set in a crowd, satisfied that nobody would come to disturb their new shelter during an absence of only an hour or two.

Joel Runnell led the way around the cliff and then into a thicket where the pine trees fairly touched the ground.

“Here are hundreds of traps fairly waiting for us,” he said.

“I don’t see any,” said Teddy, gazing around vacantly.

“You’ll see one in a few minutes.”

Finding a spot that suited him, Joel Runnell cleared away some of the snow, which was but a few inches deep. Then, with a hatchet he had brought along, he cut two short sticks and near the top of each cut a sharp notch, the opening pointing downward.

“Now I’ll drive these two sticks into the ground, about eight inches apart,” said he; and put them down until the notches he had cut were less than a foot from the soil. “Joe,” he added, “you cut a strong, flat stick that will reach from one notch to the other.”

While Joe was doing this, old Runnell put down another stick, this time with a sharp upper point. The three sticks in the ground formed a triangle. Then a stick was cut, sharp at one end and blunt at the other. This the old hunter called the catch stick.

Several feet away was a sapling and this was readily bent down in the direction of the imperfect trap. To the sapling Joel Runnell tied a stout cord and to the lower end of the cord fastened a bit of wire in the form of a running loop.

“Now we’ll proceed to set our trap,” he said, and taking the catch stick he placed the blunt end under the stick Joe had put in the two notches and balanced the sharp end on the equally sharp end of the stick in front.

The sapling was now bent over until the loop, or noose, was low to the ground, between the two sticks in the ground and that in the notches. Then the string, just above the noose, was fastened to the blunt end of the catch stick.

“Now all we’ve got to do is to bait our trap and it will be ready for business,” went on Joel Runnell, and around the sharp stick in the ground fastened some extra tender twigs of brushwood he had found on the way. “You see, the minute Mr. Rabbit begins to eat the twigs, he’ll shake the stick. That will make the catch stick slip down at the sharp end. Up will fly the blunt end and so will the noose, with Mr. Rabbit dangling in it by the neck or by the body.”

“But he may go at the bait from the back,” said Bart.

“The trap is done, but we’ve got to persuade Mr. Rabbit to go at the bait from the front,” said the old hunter, and banked up the snow and dead brushwood around the three sides, leaving only the spot by the loop clear.

When the trap was completed they walked off and at a distance set another. By this time all the young hunters were at it, and in less than two hours nine traps, large and small, had been set and baited in various ways.

“If we wanted to, we could make some box traps for birds,” said old Runnell. “But I guess you won’t care for them this trip. It’s better to catch birds in the summer.”

“I’d rather not catch them at all,” said Fred. “They are not much good for food – that is, they don’t go aground like rabbits, or turkeys, or a deer. I don’t believe in killing them just for the fun of it.”

“What is a death-fall?” questioned Link.

“A death-fall is simply a heavy trap, for killing big game,” answered the old hunter. “Some are made simply of a heavy log, so placed that when the bait is disturbed the log comes down and crushes the beast. Others are made with a tough stick and a big rock.”

“Some hunters dig pitfalls for bears, don’t they?” asked one of the boys.

“Yes, but it’s not likely we’ll catch a bear in any such hole – they are too scarce around here. Besides, pitfalls are dangerous. Some years ago a hunter I knew fairly well fell into a pitfall dug the season before by some other hunters, and he broke his leg and two ribs.”

“It was mean to leave the pitfall unmarked,” said Joe.

“When you are in the woods there are several things worth remembering, lads. One is, never leave a fire without you’re certain it won’t do damage.”