Part 25

"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 care not to step in it, he at length struck it where it passed through the tall grass. Here he squatted down and made some sort of strange passes over his trap, mumbling certain words in a strange tongue. Like all of his people, Skookie was superstitious. What he wanted to do now was to wish his trap good-luck. Having attended to this part of his ceremony, he drew his knife and began to detach a square of the thick, matted moss, making a cavity about arm's distance at one side of the path. In this hole he buried the hub of the klipsie and covered it carefully with moss, so that nothing was left to show. The arm, which lay back still farther in the grass, he covered up lightly so that it also would be concealed from view. Then, carefully, he stretched his trigger string across the path, mixing it up with some of the dried spears of grass so that it lay a foot or less above the level of the path, or at just about the height at which the fore-legs or breast of the fox would strike it as the animal came walking down the trail. Having bent the grass above his klipsie, and arranged everything so that the place showed no signs of what had been going on, Skookie at last smiled, stood back, and looked cheerfully at his work; then he cast a glance toward the skies, and made a sign with his fingers held downward as though to indicate falling rain.

"Bime-by water!" he said.

"He means that he wants it to rain," said Rob, "so that the scent will all be washed off from the trap and from the ground around it."

"Well," said John, "if the water is about the way it averages, he won't have to wait longer than to-night for his rain." Which, indeed, was the case, for in the night, while they were all safely in the barabbara around the fire, the rain came as usual, sufficient to blot out all trace of their late work on the fox trails.

The following morning the boys at once began to wonder what luck had met their trapping operations. It did not appear to them likely that they would catch anything the first night; but Skookie, it seemed, was of a different opinion. After breakfast he led the way to the place where the trap lay, and without hesitation walked into the tall grass, stooped down, and at once held up to view a long, dark animal at sight of which the boys uttered a joint whoop of joy!

"We got him!" said John. "We certainly did get a fox, and the very first night, too."

"Yes," agreed Rob, "we did more than that: we got a silver-gray fox, and a mighty good one at that. Was there ever such luck, I do wonder!"

Skookie took it all as a matter of course, but the others were much excited over this discovery. They put the silky, handsome animal upon the ground and began to smooth out its fur. The fangs of the klipsie had struck it in the back of the neck and killed it instantly, so that the coat remained quite smooth and undisturbed by any struggles. It was long and silky--dark, with white-tipped tail, and gray extremities on all the hairs of the back.