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By OLD TRAPPER
I am an old man now, but have followed the trap line for nearly fifty years. Have trapped in, and caught my share of about all the fur hearers that inhabit the U. S. except in the southern part, and if it is not taking tip too much space in our magazine I should like to tell my brother trappers of one incident that happened to me while on the trap line in North Eastern Montana.
I had located at the upper end of a long ridge and had built by cabin at the foot of a high bluff and where a narrow canyon cut down through the rimrock, and where a beautiful spring bubbled up, thus making water handy as well as wood and shelter.
To the North and West the country was densely wooded, while to the East and South it was open and rolling with some deep ravines, but very little timber, mostly low brush.
Down at the lower end of the ridge, and where it met the open valley proper, was my nearest neighbor, a Mr. Deane. It was about ten miles to this house and I secured him and his team to help me build my cabin and pack in my supplies for the winder, the country not being so rough but what the horses could make it easily. Mr. Deane could also bring out my mail from the town and any other things that I might need that I had forgotten, and every few days I made a trip down to the ranch, thus keeping an open trail.
One time along about the middle of the winter I went down there to help him butcher a couple of hogs, as they were rather heavy for one man to tackle. I stayed all night and a part of the next day, and we whiled away an hour or two shooting at a target until I discovered that three more shells were all that I had with me.
On leaving for the cabin Deane and his good wife loaded me down with fresh meat, a loaf of bread and some doughnuts, that she was sure would taste good and save me cooking, so the pack with the mail that had arrived weighed somewhere near forty pounds or more.
Now there had been a big timber wolf bothering around the place catching chickens and a pig or two and they had me bring a couple of my big traps down that way and set them along the trail in the hopes that I might catch the thief. Wolves were a little out of my line in those days, my trapping being mostly for fisher and marten, but I brought down the traps and set one close to the trail and the other a little farther up and some distance away from the trail.
On leaving we remarked about the peculiar look and feel of the air and Deane remarked that we were due for a blizzard some of these days and it might come before dark and advised me to be sure and stick to the top of the ridge so that if it should break before I got to the cabin I would be more apt to find it. I had never seen a real blizzard but wasn't anxious to make one's acquaintance either, so I hurried along as fast as the hill and the pack would allow me.
I passed the first wolf trap and found it undisturbed and on coming to the place where I should leave the trail to go to the other, I stopped and debated the matter for a minute. I knew that the storm was surely coming, and if there should happen to be a wolf in the trap that he would get drifted under the snow and perhaps I would lose both wolf and trap, so I concluded to risk it and go out to where the trap was set anyway.
The trap was set at the foot of a little rocky bluff and the only thing I could get to fasten to was a small, but quite long dry pole, but it was well concealed. On reaching the place I found the trap gone but there was a plain trail where the big fellow had pulled the drag after him.
He had made his way down the hill and towards a number of steep but not very deep canyons. These canyons were tilled with low fine brush and in most places were drifted full of fine snow which made going extremely hard, as one would sink in nearly to their arms, but on the ridges the snow was blown away and the traveling there was good.
It was growing colder every minute and my good judgment told me to go back to the trail get the pack and beat it for the cabin as fast as I could travel. But, on the other hand, there was the wolf in that trap and if I didn't get him then I would likely never find him as the snow that was sure to come would cover all his traces, but I guess that I didn't have much sense in those days for through the snow I plunged after that wolf.
I followed him but a short ways until I found where he had been tangled up in the brush for some time and had gnawed the drag in two and was gone again with a shorter drag. Through the drifts and over the ridge 1 went, getting farther from my pack and the trail all the time. On mounting the first ridge I caught sight of the big fellow just topping the next rise but no chance for a shot.
T floundered through the next hollow with all the haste that I could command and caught a good sight of the wolf toiling up the other side. He was having a hard time as well as I. I was so winded that I could not hold steady but I fired a couple of shot* at him. The first one missed but the second struck him all right but did very little damage and he disappeared over the top evidently making for a deep canyon about a mile distant.
Here I changed my course a little, instead of following him directly I kept away to the right and planned to get ahead of him and turn him back towards the trail again, but the snow was so deep and the going so hard that I made very slow time and when I reached the brink of the deep canyon I happened to see him coming over the top of the hill and about a hundred and fifty yards away. He saw me at the same time and half turned and then paused. He hated to go back and was afraid to go on and here was my chance. I was so tired that I could hardly hold my breath loner enough to take aim but I did the best I could and pulled and Brother Trappers didn't I take a good long breath when I saw him crumple down in the snow with a bullet through his neck.
Although it was becoming bitterly cold I was reeking with sweat and 1 knew that I dare not waste the time to skin him as I would be liable to freeze so I slung him over my shoulder, trap and all, and beat it for the place where I had left the pack and the trail. By keeping on the top of the ridges the walking- was much better and I soon reached the pack.
The sun was getting quite low and there was a sort of singing in the air, and the gray haze that rested along the tons of the distant mountains told me even with the little experience that I had that I had better get to that home and get there quick as I could or I would never get there alive.
The wolf together with the pack made a heavy and unhandy load but I was young and strong then and the way I tore up that hill wasn't slow. As I topped a low hill about a mile from the cabin I could look back down to the valley and see the blizzard fast approaching. My judgment told me then to drop the wolf and make the load lighter, but no. I must take him along, and whenever the ground was a little level I would run the best I could. On nearing the cabin, while it was not yet sundown and the cabin in plain sight, it turned suddenly so dark that I could hardly see my way. fine flakes of snow was beginning to cut my face and I wondered whether I was at last going to lose my way when I stumbled right up against the corner of the shack. I got the door open and tumbled in just as the blizzard broke that kept me in the cabin for all that night and the next day and night.
But I had a good supply of fuel that I had provided for just such an emergency, and it was quite a pleasure to set by the glowing fire and hear the howling blasts tear at the cabin and roaring off down the canyon only to be followed by another.
The morning of the third day dawned nice and pleasant and as calm as if there never was such a thing as a blizzard in that country. After getting breakfast I started down the trail to see how my neighbors had fared. About half way I met friend Deane coming up to see what had become of me. It seemed that contrary to the usual thing the blizzard broke down in the valley much sooner than it did higher up, and he was quite sure that 1 would not be able to reach the cabin before it overtook me, and he fully expected to find my frozen body somewhere along that trail.
I have seen many a blizzard since then but that was the nearest that I ever came to being caught out in the real thing. We had no more that winter and I caught a good lot of furs. I gave the wolf skin to Mrs. Deane, who afterwards wrote me that she had it tanned for a rug.
It was the largest wolf that I ever got. and I often think of the time when I killed the huge fellow with my last shell.
I am sixty-five years of age but still do a little trapping in season. I have never trapped hear much. My favorite trap for them is a good rifle.
Hunter-Trader-Trapper. October: 1921,
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