He took the calf by the fore legs and dragged it over the snow to
where its mother lay, then mounted his horse, and seeing that Jack
also had mounted, quickly freed the cow from the rope. When she
sprung to her feet, she ran to the calf and began to lick it, and
in a few moments it stood up. Meantime Jack and Hugh had gone back
and met John, who was slowly dragging a large cow over the snow.
She struggled and fought, and the little pony that John was riding
had his hands full to keep her moving in the right direction. As
soon as Hugh's rope fell over her horns, and the two horses began to
pull together, she moved swiftly and steadily along. Jack rode on to
get the calf. At first he thought there was none there, but looking
carefully he saw a foot and part of a leg sticking out from the snow
where the cow had been standing. He dismounted, and digging away the
snow, by pulling and pushing he brought to light a big strong calf,
which at once stood up. This time, Jack did not try to be tender with
the calf. He threw his rope over its head, took the turn of his rope
over the saddle-horn, pulled the calf up out of the snow pit and
then galloped back to where the cow lay. As soon as he cast the rope
off the calf, which this time he did without dismounting, the animal
stood up and bawled for its mother. Hugh turned her loose, and they
all went back for another cow. In this way they pulled out all the
cows and their calves, and before the middle of the day had started
back to the ranch.
The weather had become milder, and now the snow was melting a little.
"Might be such a thing, my son, as we'd find a coyote at some of
these baits. 'Tain't likely though. Still we'll go back the same way
we came."
"Snow on ground, maybe coyotes pretty hungry. Why you no make 'em
trap like H'ingin?" said John.
"Ain't wolves enough for it, and besides that, I don't believe I ever
thought of it before. Might be a good idea, though. Maybe I'll try it
next winter, if coyotes is anyways like as plenty as they are now.
Poison's no good any more."
"What kind of trap is that, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Why, it's sorter like a pitfall trap that I've heard tell of. You
kill a bull, and all around him build up a kind of a fence of poles
close together, and all leaning toward each other at the top, where
you leave quite a hole. Then you pile up rocks and dirt around your
poles, so's to make a little mound for the wolves to walk on up to
the hole. If they're hungry enough they'll jump down into the hole to
get at the meat, but they can't jump out again because the hole is
too high up. They can't climb up the poles and they can't dig through
'em. So there you've got 'em."
"Long time ago," said John, "he catch 'im plenty big wolves, plenty
coyote that way, _les shauvages_. My grand'mère, when she was
little girl, 'bout as h'ole as Jacques, H'ingins not make it beaver,
not make it h'robes pour trade. H'only trade 'im wolf skin. Ver'
curieuse."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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