The Arkansas advocate., 1835-05-01

Ing your chain to stake, which you put us far out m the water as its length will allow :; sometimes you cover Il with moss or some thing else. This depends on the nature of ] the settlement of the beaver. whether if has been often trapped or not. You then dip little twig in your bait, (that is, in dissolved , castor,) and stick tnis twig sometimes just outside of them. The beaver goes to the smell of the castor, and is generally caught by the fore feet, and, nouneing over, is drowned Tn the water. If the place has been long trapped, they are too old to be caught by bait. Lewis once set his traps five nights for m old beaver, and for four nights the old fellow took away his bait-sticE without sPringing inc trap. On the fifth night, Lewis placed his trap still deeper under the water, and covered 1t with moss, placing no bait-stick. He then washed away ali trace of himself, and in tIle morn ing he had the beaver. He was an in- mense old fellow, and had got out on the bank, where he lay pufiing and shaking the water. Lewis laid down his gun and pis- tols, and then creeping up to him, caught him by the hind leg. The beaver tried 10 bite him, but was unable to do if, until Lew Is, putting his knee on the trap, loosened his paw from Il, and dashed his brains out with it.
 It Is no uncommon thing to see trees, three and four feet in diameter, cut down by these animals, cut up into lengths of of about eight feet, and taken lengthways to their dam.
 They had only caught about forty bea- yer in this mountain, when the Eutaws came upon them, in number about three hundred, and wished to rob them They are in the habit of doing so 10 the Mexi- cans but they, 10 use another western phrase, 'barked up the wrong tree,' when they got hold of Tom Smith. The Bald Hornet is not easily frightened, if he los a wooden leg The old chief sat down in their camp, and after various threats, shot his gun at the ground, as a sign that they would kill all the party immediately. Tom was undaunted: he told the chief that he might kill them, but could not rob them that his heart was big as the sky, and defied the old chief to attack them. All this time, he was keeping Lewis off, who had ] drawn his pistol when the chief shot his gun
 
 had not Tom interlered. The consequence of their boldness was, that the Eutaws went off without molesting or robbing them,-- 1 They then immediately moved camp. ] While upon the Elk mountain, they killed several mountain sheep and white bear. The former animal is larger than deer, and is like common sheep in appearance -of dirty light color-and great lover of rocks and precipices, in which, as well as in it's speed and faculty of smell, 1t equals the chamois. Their horns are like those of the domestic sheep, but much larger and stronger. They will often fall thirty or for ty feet, strike upon their horns, and rise and go of as if nothing had happened to them. You may see them standing with all their feet together, and that in place where they scarcely have foothold. Lewis was out, after leaving the Elk mountain, in company ] with Alexander, one of his companions, and an excellent hunter. They came upon a flock of perhaps sixty or seventy of these sheep. Lewis shot, struck one, and he fell. Alexander likewise fired, but missed entire Y. They then ran about thirty yards fur ther and stopped again. Being now about one hundred and fifty yards from them Alexander was for creeping nearer, but Lewis determined to shoot from the place
 in which they were. Shoot, then,' said Alexander, T cannot hit one at this dis tance.' Do you see that bunch of heads together?' said Lewis, I will shoot at the upper head.' He did so, and the sheep fell, and lay kicking. Alexander ran and cut his throat, and then went to the first one which Lewis had shot, and was busy doing the same office for ilim, when the former rose and made off over the rocks. Alexan- der rose also, and was hardly off the sheep, when 1t likewise rose and followed its com panion, and they lost both. The party laughed heartily at Alexander, for acting the doctor, and bleeding mountain sheep. The meat of these animals is excellent. and their skins are thin, when dressed, and soft as velvet.
 From the Elk mountain they crossed to the main branch of Grand river, and came within a few days journey of the heads of the Columbia. They then left this branch, after trapping time upon if. and crossed to the head of Smiths fork of the same river, and thence to the heads of the Arkansas, where they trapped again, and then crossed to the heads of the Del Norte and came in to Santa Fe. The last forty days they had only one bag of dried meat to live on, and it was during this time that they shot and lost the two sheep. They killed nothing at all in that time They bought doc or two