Nevertheless the trap was fatal to these industrious and ingenious animals, and by the year 1835 they had been reduced in numbers to such a degree that they were no longer the chief lure and gain of the fur hunter. The native, before the opening of the European market, not having much use for such small skins and preferring the meat of other game for food, the beaver for ages had been practically unmolested. But the footsteps of the American trapper sounded his death knell. At the same time they sounded the same knell for every living thing in the whole vast wilderness, and now, a century after, not only is it next to impossible to find a beaver colony in that immense array of mountain and plain, but all wild animals have become more or less of a curiosity, only preserved from absolute extermination by the most rigorous game laws. Killing for fun is even more destructive than killing for profit. The principal contrivance employed in taking beaver was the common steel trap, a couple of jaws so arranged that they could be spread and set on a trigger which was connected with a treadle in the centre. When the animal stepped on this treadle, the powerful jaws were freed and were brought fiercely together by a spring, clamping the leg of the victim securely. The trap being fastened to a strong chain and this to a stake, the captive could not escape, unless it gnawed its own leg off, and it is said beaver sometimes did this. The trap was set in the line of a runway or trail or near the entrance to a burrow, with a stick leaning over it on the extremity of which was the bait, a small quantity of castoreum, of gum camphor, oil of juniper, cinnamon, or cloves. The last two were dissolved in alcohol and made into a paste. In reaching for the bait, the beaver stepped on the treadle of the trap. The hunter made his rounds regularly to gather in the pelts of the captives, resetting the traps for another catch if the locality was promising, or, if the contrary, taking them up and pushing on in search of better ground. In the very beginning those first in a rich spot of course reaped the best harvest, and it was the desire to obtain large and quick returns that induced trappers constantly to enter farther and farther into the unfathomed places. The move was not always a wise one. Frequently they left comparatively good ground and came to that which was lean, or perhaps entirely devoid of the animal sought. [Illustration: Beaver Trap.] [Illustration: The Beaver. Copyright, 1901, by Doubleday, Page & Co.]