The Hunters' Feast: Conversations Around the Camp Fire

“‘For your life don’t!’ cried Garey, catching at the gun of one of the hunters.

“The caution came too late: half-a-dozen bullets were already whistling upwards.

“The effect was just what the trapper had anticipated. The bears, maddened by the bullets, which had harmed them no more than the pricking of as many pins, dropped to their all-fours again, and, with fierce growls, commenced descending the cliff.

“The scene of confusion was now at its height. Several of the men, less brave than their comrades, ran off to hide themselves in the snow, while others commenced climbing the low pine-trees!

“‘Caché the gals!’ cried Garey. ‘Hyar, yer darned Spanish greasers! if yer won’t light, hook on to the weemen a wheen o’ yer, and toat them to the snow. Cowardly slinks, – wagh!’

“‘See to them, doctor,’ I shouted to the German, who, I thought, might be best spared from the fight; and the next, moment, the doctor, assisted by several Mexicans, was hurrying the terrified girls towards the spot where we had left the cimmaron.

“Many of us knew that to hide, under the circumstances, would be worse than useless. The fierce but sagacious brutes would have discovered, us one by one, and destroyed, us in detail. ‘They must, be met and fought!’ that was the word; and we resolved to carry it into execution.

“There were about a dozen of us who ‘stood up to it’ – all the Delaware and Shawanoes, with Garey and the mountain-men.

“We kept firing at the bears as they ran along the ledges in their zigzag descent, but our rifles were out of order, our fingers were numbed with cold, and our nerves weakened with hunger. Our bullets drew blood from the hideous brutes, yet not a shot proved deadly. It only stung them into fiercer rage.

“It was a fearful moment when the last shot was fired, and still not an enemy the less. We flung away the guns, and, clutching the hatchets and hunting-knives, silently awaited our grizzly foes.

“We had taken our stand close to the rock. It was our design to have the first blow, as the animals, for the most part, came stern-foremost down the cliff. In this we were disappointed. On reaching a ledge some ten feet from the platform, the foremost bear halted, and, seeing our position, hesitated to descend. The next moment, his companions, maddened with wounds, came tumbling down upon the same ledge, and, with fierce growls, the five huge bodies were precipitated into our midst.

“Then came the desperate struggle, which I cannot describe, – the shouts of the hunters, the wilder yells of our Indian allies, the hoarse worrying of the bears, the ringing of tomahawks from skulls like flint, the deep, dull ‘thud’ of the stabbing-knife, and now and then a groan, as the crescent claw tore up the clinging muscle. O God! it was a fearful scene!

“Over the platform bears and men went rolling and struggling, in the wild battle of life and death. Through the trees, and into the deep drift, staining the snow with their mingled blood! Here, two or three men were engaged with a single foe – there, some brave hunter stood battling alone. Several were sprawling upon the ground. Every moment, the bears were lessening the number of their assailants!

“I had been struck down at the commencement of the struggle. On regaining my feet, I saw the animal that had felled me hugging the prostrate body of a man.

“It was Godé. I leaned over the bear, clutching its shaggy skin. I did this to steady myself; I was weak and dizzy; so were we all. I struck with all my force, stabbing the animal on the ribs.

“Letting go the Frenchman, the bear turned suddenly, and reared upon me. I endeavoured to avoid the encounter, and ran backward, fending him off with my knife.

“All at once I came against the snow-drift, and fell over on my back. Next moment, the heavy body was precipitated upon me, the sharp claws pierced deep into my shoulder, – I inhaled the monster’s fetid breath; and striking wildly with my right arm, still free, we rolled over and over in the snow.

“I was blinded by the dry drift. I felt myself growing weaker and weaker; it was the loss of blood. I shouted – a despairing shout – but it could not have been heard at ten paces’ distance. Then there was a strange hissing sound in my ears, – a bright light flashed across my eyes; a burning object passed over my face, scorching the skin; there was a smell as of singeing hair; I could hear voices, mixed with the roars of my adversary; and all at once the claws were drawn out of my flesh, the weight was lifted from my breast, and I was alone!

“I rose to my feet, and, rubbing the snow out of my eyes, looked around. I could see no one. I was in a deep hollow made by our struggles, but I was alone!

“The snow all around me was dyed to a crimson; but what had become of my terrible antagonist? Who had rescued me from his deadly embrace?

“I staggered forward to the open ground. Here a new scene met my gaze: a strange-looking man was running across the platform, with a huge firebrand, – the bole of a burning pine-tree, – which he waved in the air. He was chasing one of the hears, that, growling with rage and pain, was making every effort to reach the cliffs. Two others were already half-way up, and evidently clambering with great difficulty, as the blood dripped back from their wounded flanks.

“The bear that was pursued soon took to the rocks, and, urged by the red brand scorching his shaggy hams, was soon beyond the reach of his pursuer. The latter now made towards a fourth, that was still battling with two or three weak antagonists. This one was ‘routed’ in a twinkling, and with yells of terror followed his comrades up the bluff. The strange man looked around for the fifth. It had disappeared. Prostrate, wounded men were strewed over the ground, but the bear was nowhere to be seen. He had doubtless escaped through the snow.

“I was still wondering who was the hero of the firebrand, and where he had come from. I have said he was a strange-looking man. He was so – and like no one of our party that I could think of. His head was bald, – no, not bald, but naked, – there was not a hair upon it, crown or sides, and it glistened in the clear light like polished ivory. I was puzzled beyond expression, when a man – Garey – who had been felled upon the platform by a blow from one of the bears, suddenly sprang to his feet, exclaiming, —

“‘Go it, Doc! Three chyars for the doctor!’

“To my astonishment, I now recognised the features of that individual, the absence of whose brown locks had produced such a metamorphosis as, I believe, was never effected by means of borrowed hair.

“‘Here’s your scalp, Doc,’ cried Garey, running up with the wig, ‘by the livin’ thunder! yer saved us all;’ and the hunter seized the German in his wild embrace.

“Wounded men were all around, and commenced crawling together. But where was the fifth of the bears? Four only had escaped by the cliff.

“‘Yonder he goes!’ cried a voice, as a light spray, rising above the snow-wreath, showed that some animal was struggling through the drift.

“Several commenced loading their rifles, intending to follow, and, if possible, secure him. The doctor armed himself with a fresh pine; but before these, arrangements were completed, a strange cry came from the spot, that caused our blood to run cold again. The Indians leaped to their feet, and, seizing their tomahawks, rushed to the gap. They knew the meaning of that cry – it was the death-yell of their tribe!

“They entered the road that we had trampled down in the morning, followed by those who had loaded their guns. We watched them from the platform with anxious expectation, but before they had reached the spot, we could see that, the ‘stoor’ was slowly settling down. It was plain that the struggle had ended.

“We still stood waiting in breathless silence, and watching the floating spray that noted their progress through the drift. At length they had reached the scene of the struggle. There was an ominous stillness, that lasted for a moment, and then the Indian’s fate was announced in the sad, wild note that came wailing up the valley. It was the dirge of a Shawano warrior!

“They had found their brave comrade dead, with his scalping-knife buried in the heart of his terrible antagonist!

“It was a costly supper, that bear-meat, but, perhaps, the sacrifice had saved many lives. We would keep the ‘cimmaron’ for to-morrow; next day, the man-root; and the next, – what next? Perhaps – the man!

“Fortunately, we were not, driven to this extremity. The frost, had again set in, and the surface of the snow, previously moistened by the sun and rain, soon became caked into ice strong enough to bear us, and upon its firm crust we escaped out of the perilous pass, and gained the warmer region of the plains in safety.”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

The Swans of America

In our journey we had kept far enough to the north to avoid the difficult route of the Ozark Hills; and we at length encamped upon the Marais de Cygnes, a branch of the Osage River. Beyond this we expected to fall in with the buffalo, and of course we were full of pleasant anticipation. Near the point where we had pitched our camp, the banks of the river were marshy, with here and there small lakes of stagnant water. In these a large number of swans, with wild geese and other aquatic birds, were swimming and feeding.

Of course our guns were put in requisition, and we succeeded in killing a brace of swans, with a grey goose (Anser Canadensis), and a pair of ducks. The swans were very large ones – of the Trumpeter species – and one of them was cooked for supper. It was in excellent condition, and furnished a meal for the whole of our party! The other swan, with the goose and ducks, were stowed away for another occasion.

While “discussing” the flesh of this great and noble bird, we also discussed many of the points in its natural history.

“White as a swan” is a simile old as language itself. It would, no doubt, puzzle an Australian, used to look upon those beautiful and stately birds as being of a very different complexion. The simile holds good, however, with the North-American species, all three of which – for there are three of them – are almost snow-white.

We need not describe the form or general appearance of the swan. These are familiar to every one. The long, upright, and gracefully-curving neck; the finely-moulded breast, the upward-tending tail-tip, the light “dip,” and easy progression through the water, are points that everybody has observed, admired, and remembered. These are common to all birds of the genus Cygnus, and are therefore not peculiar to the swans of America.

Many people fancy there are but two kinds of swans – the white and black. It is not long since the black ones have been introduced to general notoriety, as well as to general admiration. But there are many distinct species besides – species differing from each other in size, voice, and other peculiarities. In Europe alone, there are four native swans, specifically distinct.

It was long believed that the common American swan (Cygnus Americanus) was identical with the common European species, so well-known in England. It is now ascertained, however, not only that these two are specifically distinct, but that in North America there exist two other species, differing from the Cygnus Americanus, and from each other. These are the Trumpeter (Cygnus buccinnator) and the small swan of Bewick (Cygnus Bewickii), also an inhabitant of European countries.

The common American species is of a pure white, with black hill, logs, and feet. A slight tinge of brownish red is found on some individuals on the crown of the head, and a small patch of orange-yellow extends from the angles of the mouth to the eye. On the base of the bill is a fleshy tubercle or knob, and the upper mandible is curved at the tip.

The young of this species are of a bluish-grey colour, with more of the brown-red tinge upon the head. The naked yellow patch, extending from the angles of the mouth to the eye, in the young birds, is covered with feathers, and their bills are flesh-coloured. This description answers in every respect for the swan of Bewick; but the latter species is only three-fourths the size of the former; and, besides, it has only eighteen tail feathers, while the American swan has twenty. Their note is also entirely unlike.

The “Trumpeter” is different from either. He is the largest, being frequently met with of nearly six feet in length, while the common swan rarely exceeds five. The bill of the Trumpeter is not tuberculated; and the yellow patch under the eye is wanting. The bill, legs, and feet are entirely black. All the rest is white, with the exception of the head, which is usually tinged with chestnut or red-brown. When young, he is of a greyish-white, with a yellow mixture, and the head of deeper red-brown. His tail feathers are twenty-four in number; but there is a material difference between him and his congeners in the arrangement of the windpipe. In the Trumpeter this enters a protuberance that stands out on the dorsal aspect of the sternum, which is wanting in both the other kinds. It may be that this arrangement has something to do with his peculiar note, which differs altogether from that of the others. It is much fuller and louder, and at a distance bears a considerable resemblance to the trumpet or French horn. Hence the trivial name by which this species is known to the hunters.

All the American swans are migratory – that is, they pass from north to south, every autumn, and back again from south to north in the beginning of spring.

The period of their migration is different with the three species. The Trumpeter is the earliest, preceding all other birds, with the exception of the eagles. The Cygnus Americanus comes next; and, lastly, the small swans, that are among the very latest of migratory birds.

The Trumpeters seek the north at the breaking up of the ice. Sometimes they arrive at a point in their journey where this has not taken place. In such cases they fly back again until they reach some river or lake from which the ice has disappeared, where they remain a few days, and wait the opening of the waters farther north. When they are thus retarded and sent back, it is always in consequence of some unusual and unseasonable weather.

The swans go northward to breed. Why they do so is a mystery. Perhaps they feel more secure in the inhospitable wastes that lie within the Arctic circle. The Trumpeters breed as far south as latitude 61 degrees, but most of them retire within the frigid zone.

The small swans do not nest so far south, but pursue their course still onward to the Polar Sea. Here they build immense nests by raising heaps of peat moss, six feet in length by four in width, and two feet high. In the top of these heaps is situated the nest, which consists of a cavity a foot deep, and a foot and a half in diameter.

The Trumpeters and American swans build in marshes and the islands of lakes. Where the muskrat (Fiber zibethicus) abounds, his dome-shaped dwelling – at that season, of course, deserted – serves often as the breeding-place boll? for the swans and wild geese. On the top of this structure, isolated in the midst of great marshes, these birds are secure from all their enemies – the eagle excepted.

The eggs of the Trumpeter are very large, one of them being enough to make a good meal for a man. The eggs of the American species are smaller and of a greenish appearance, while those of the Bewick swan are still smaller and of a brownish-white colour, with a slight clouding of darker hue.

Six or seven eggs is the usual “setting.” The cygnets, when half or full-grown, are esteemed good eating, and are much sought after by the hunters and Indians of the fur countries.

When the cygnets are full-grown, and the frost makes its appearance upon the lakes and rivers of the hyperborean regions, the swans begin to shift southwards. They do not migrate directly, as in the spring, but take more time on their journey, and remain longer in the countries through which they pass. This no doubt arises from the fact that a different motive or instinct now urges them. In the spring they are under the impulse of philo-progenitiveness. Now they range from lake to lake and stream to stream in search only of food. Again, as in the spring, the Trumpeters lead the van – winging their way to the great lakes, and afterwards along the Atlantic coast, and by the line of the Mississippi, to the marshy shores of the Mexican Sea.

It may be remarked that this last-mentioned species – the Trumpeter – is rare upon the Atlantic coast, where the common swan is seen in greatest plenty. Again, the Trumpeter does not appear on the Pacific or by the Colombia River, where the common swan is met with, but the latter is there outnumbered by the small species (Cygnus Bewickii) in the ratio of five to one. This last again is not known in the fur countries of the interior, where the Cygnus Americanus is found, but where the Trumpeter exists in greatest numbers. Indeed the skins of the Trumpeter are those which are mostly exported by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and which form an important article of their commerce.

The swan is eagerly hunted by the Indians who inhabit the fur countries. Its skin brings a good price from the traders, and its quills are valuable. Besides, the flesh is a consideration with these people, whose life, it must be borne in mind, is one continuous struggle for food; and who, for one-half the year, live upon the very verge of starvation.

The swan, therefore, being a bird that weighs between twenty and thirty pounds, ranks among large game, and is hunted with proportionate ardour. Every art the Indian can devise is made use of to circumvent these great birds, and snares, traps, and decoys of all kinds are employed in the pursuit.

But the swans are among the shyest of God’s creatures. They fly so rapidly, unless when beating against the wind, that it requires a practised shot to hit them on the wing. Even when moulting their feathers, or when young, they can escape – fluttering over the surface of the water faster than a canoe can be paddled.

The most usual method of hunting them is by snares. These are set in the following manner: —

A lake or river is chosen, where it is known the swans are in the habit of resting for some time on their migration southward – for this is the principal season of swan-catching.

Some time before the birds make their appearance, a number of wicker hedges are constructed, running perpendicularly out from the bank, and at the distance of a few yards from each other. In the spaces between, as well as in openings left in the fences themselves, snares are set. These snares are made of the intestines of the deer, twisted into a round shape, and looped. They are placed so that several snares may embrace the opening, and the swans cannot pass through without being caught.

The snare is fastened to a stake, driven into the mud with sufficient firmness to hold the bird when caught and struggling. That the snare may not be blown out of its proper place by the wind, or carried astray by the current, it is attached to the wattles of the hedge by some strands of grass. These, of course, are easily broken, and give way the moment a bird presses against the loop.

The fences or wattle-hedges are always constructed projecting out from the shore – for it is known that the swans must keep close in to the land while feeding. Whenever a lake or river is sufficiently shallow to make it possible to drive in stakes, the hedges are continued across it from one side to the other.

Swans are also snared upon their nests. When a nest is found, the snare is set so as to catch the bird upon her return to the eggs. These birds, like many others, have the habit of entering the nest on one side, and going out by the other, and it is upon the entrance side that the snare is set.

The Indians have a belief that if the hands of the persons setting the snare be not clean, the bird will not approach it, but rather desert her eggs, even though she may have been hatching them for some time.

It is, indeed, true that this is a habit of many birds, and may be so of the wild swan. Certain it is that the nest is always reconnoitred by the returning bird with great caution, and any irregularity appearing about it will render her extremely shy of approaching it.

Swans are shot, like other birds, by “approaching” them under cover. It requires very large shot to kill them – the same that is used for deer, and known throughout America as “buck-shot.” In England this size of shot is termed “swan shot.”

It is difficult to get within range of the wild swan, he is by nature a shy bird; and his long neck enables him to see over the sedge that surrounds him. Where there happens to be no cover – and this is generally the case where he haunts – it is impossible to approach him.

Sometimes the hunter floats down upon him with his canoe hidden by a garniture of reeds and bushes. At other times he gets near enough in the disguise of a deer or other quadruped – for the swan, like most wild birds, is less afraid of the lower animals than of man.

During the spring migration, when the swan is moving northward, the hunter, hidden under some rock, bank, or tree, frequently lures him from his high flight by the imitation of his well-known “hoop.” This does not succeed so well in the autumn.

When the swans arrive prematurely on their spring journey, they resort sometimes in considerable flocks to the springs and waterfalls, all other places being then ice-bound. At this time the hunters concealing themselves in the neighbourhood, obtain the desired proximity, and deal destruction with their guns.

A – related an account of a swan hunt by torch-light, which he had made some years before.

“I was staying some days,” said he, “at a remote, settlement upon one of the streams that run into the Red river of the north, it was in the autumn season, and the Trumpeter-swans had arrived in the neighbourhood on their annual migration to the south. I had been out several times after them with my gun, but was unable to get a shot at them in consequence of their shyness. I had adopted every expedient I could think of – calls, disguises, and decoys – but all to no purpose. I resolved, at length, to try them by torch-light.

“It so happened that none of the hunters, at the settlement had ever practised this method; but as most of them had succeeded, by some means or other, in decoying and capturing several swans by other means, my hunter-pride was touched, and I was most anxious to show that I could kill swans as well as they. I had never seen Swans shot by torch-light, but I had employed the plan for killing deer, as you already know, and I was determined to make a trial of it upon the swans.

“I set secretly about it, resolved to steal a march upon my neighbours, if possible. My servant alone was admitted into my confidence, and we proceeded to make the necessary arrangements.

“These were precisely similar to those already described in my limit of the long-tails, except that the canoe, instead of being ‘a dug-out,’ was a light craft of birch-bark, such as are in use among the Chippowas and other Indians of the northern countries. The canoe was obtained from a settler, and tilled with torch-wood and other necessary articles, but these were clandestinely put on board.

“I was now ready, and a dark night was all that was wanted to enable me to carry out my plan.

“Fortunately I soon obtained this to my heart’s satisfaction. A night arrived as dark as Erebus; and with my servant using the paddle, we pushed out and shot swiftly down stream.

“As soon as we had cleared the ‘settlement,’ we lit our pine-knots in the frying-pan. The blaze refracted from the concave and blackened surface of the bark, cast a brilliant light over the semicircle ahead of us, at the same time that we, behind the screen of birch-bark, were hid in utter darkness. I had heard that the swans, instead of being frightened by torch-light, only became amazed, and even at times curious enough to approach it, just as the deer and some other animals do. This proved to be correct, as we had very soon a practical illustration of it.

“We had not gone a mile down the river when we observed several white objects within the circle of our light; and paddling a little nearer, we saw that they were swans. We could distinguish their long, upright necks; and saw that they had given up feeding, and were gazing with wonder at the odd object that was approaching them.