The signs having been discovered, the trappers next select a suitable location for a camp, which they soon occupy.  After the pack animals are unloaded, a part of the men start out to set the traps, while the remainder busy themselves in looking after their wants and in cooking and guarding their property, etc.  The trap is very much like the same instrument used in different sections of the United States for catching foxes, wolves etc, excepting, that it is smaller and perhaps made with more skill.  Old trappers were very superstitious in regard to the makers of their traps, for they entertained the idea that much of their good or bad fortune depended on the tools they worked with; hence, they always had their favorite makers, and would pay more for their traps than for those of any other maker.  This is true also with their rifles.  For many years a rifle was condemned at first sight if it did not have the name of Hawkins[23] stamped on it, and it was not uncommon for them, when boasting of the good qualities of their riding animals, if they considered them of the maximum degree of superiority, to style them “regular Hawkins horses”, thereby showing how far, in this respect, their predilections grounded their opinions.

[Footnote 23:  Mr. Hawkins was the owner of a large gun establishment at St. Louis, Mo.]

The setting of the trap required expertness and experience, or else it availed nothing; for the game to be caught is, as the reader can now readily conceive, very wary and his suspicions of there being anything wrong near at hand, had to be allayed by concealing as much as possible the instrument from view; yet it must not be far from the surface of the water; and then again it had to be firmly fixed in its position, by being made fast to something that was firm so as prevent its being dragged off.  The trapper, while thus engaged, is in the water.  About his waist there is a strap to which is attached a pouch in which is carried the bait.  Everything being arranged, the trap is set and the bait applied, when the man notes the place where he has been at work so as to recognize it again, and then takes his departure to return early the following morning.  The beaver, during this interim, is attracted by the peculiar scent of the bait, and, as a reward for his curiosity, he generally is caught by one of his paws and thus falls a prey to the hunter’s pleasure.  The traps, when visited, are relieved of the contents and then set again.  The game is put out of its misery and carried to camp, where it is skinned, and where all of the pelts recently taken are stretched out, dried, cured, and packed in small bales, whenever a sufficient quantity is obtained so to do with it.  The trapper, when in full dress for an expedition, and especially after having been on one with its concomitant hair-breadth escapes, Indian and bear fights, etc., cuts, to all appearances, a sorrowful figure.  His wardrobe is meagre in the extreme, yet it answers all of his