We'd follow up a new stream and where the ground
was marshy we'd know the beaver was there, for they'd throw dams across
till the water'd soak each side, squeezin' through the willow roots.
Then we'd cut a tree and scoop out a canoe, and when the shadders began
to stretch go nosin' along the bank, keen and cold and the sun settin'
red and not a sound but the dip of the paddle. We'd set the
traps--seven to a man--and at sun-up out again in the canoe, clear and
still in the gray of the morning, and find a beaver in every trap."
"Nothin' but buffalo now to count on," said the other man. "And what's
in that?"
David said timidly, as became so extravagant a suggestion, that a
mountain man he had met in Independence told him he thought the buffalo
would be eventually exterminated. The trappers looked at one another,
and exchanged satiric smiles. Even the Canadian stopped in his chatter
with Susan to exclaim in amaze: "Sacre Tonnerre!"
Old Joe gave a lazy cast of his eye at David.
"Why, boy," he said, "if they'd been killin' them varmints since Bunker
Hill they couldn't do no more with 'em than you could with your little
popgun out here on the plains.
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