frightfiction Chapter 116 The badger is very clever; it can even call on the raccoon dog to guard the gate.
Chapter 116 The badger is very clever; it can even call on the raccoon dog to guard the gate.
When Li Ju'an spoke, Song Desheng shouted, "Then what else is there to say? We'll all listen to my elder brother!"
The three returned to the hunter's hut. The hunting dogs circled the hut, and after confirming it was safe, they all crawled into the snow caves they had dug and spent the night comfortably. Hammer and Flower Ear were not familiar with each other and did not team up, but Hammer, Black Panther, and Red Wolf hit it off. They were all energetic, their eyes shining as they looked down at the hillside with great interest.
Li Ju'an extinguished the group of slippery dogs' thoughts with a single sentence: "Iron Hammer, if you keep thinking nonsense and running around, and you lead the bad dogs, I won't beat you up, I'll beat up your son."
With hostages in his hands, why would he be afraid of a dog?
Hammer finally settled down and squeezed into a snow cave with its cubs. Its eyes, however, were still darting around the hillside; its body had submitted, but its heart remained unconvinced.
Lu Zhiqiang laughed and scolded, "Iron Hammer is the best dog for tracking, and he's addicted to it. He'll feel uncomfortable if he doesn't track. I'll make Iron Hammer the lead dog for tracking, leading Red Wolf, Black Panther and the others into the mountains."
Li Ju'an retorted, "You're asking for trouble again. You just want me to sell you at a discount. You'll get angry when you can't call the dog back."
The three of them sat around the fire, bickering and arguing until they fell asleep. Listening to the howls, fights, and displays of violence from wild animals that rose and fell in the dead of night, they drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Li Ju'an touched his neck; he had worked up a sweat sleeping by the fire. Despite the freezing weather, as long as there was a fire, it wasn't cold at all; it was quite warm.
He took out a piece of wire and a steel wire ring that he had bought through connections from the forest farm from his cloth bag. He threw the used wire into the fire to burn it, then threw it on the soft snow and rubbed it with his feet, and that was it.
This process serves two purposes: firstly, the wire is blackened to prevent it from reflecting light; secondly, the wire has been used before, as the skin of the leaping cat is torn and covered in grease and blood after being snagged in the trap. Using unburnt wire in the trap would be pointless, as wild animals have a keen sense of smell and will avoid the trap if they smell grease and blood.
Looking at the wire ring that had been used several times, Song Desheng shook his head and said, "Won't it be ruined after four or five uses? We'll have to replace it with a new one."
"That's not true. If you want to snag something good, you have to be willing to spend some wire."
He burned the wire rope for an even longer time. Song Desheng, thinking of how close he was to the King of Loops in Changbai Mountain, suddenly said, "Did Qin Pao teach you his skills? Can a wire loop still catch a wild boar weighing a thousand pounds?"
"That is required."
As if possessed, Song Desheng excitedly asked, "Can a steel wire hoop really be used to trap a 500-pound tiger king?"
While helping to handle the wire ropes and steel cables, Lu Zhiqiang glared at him and teased, "Don't even mention 500 jin, you can catch tiger kings weighing thousands or even tens of thousands of jin. How thick must this steel cable be? It must be as thick as a little finger, right? Catching two thousand-jin tiger kings a month is no problem. You'll definitely break free."
Song Desheng, feeling insulted, said angrily, "Who are you trying to fool? The steel cable can break, but it's already cutting into the flesh. As long as we tie wooden stakes to the steel cable to add weight, we can lasso Tiger King, and then use a tripwire to hang it on a tree root. Tiger King might not be able to escape."
The two stumbled along, and Li Ju'an had already walked more than ten meters away. He turned back and shouted, "Do you still want to catch the big skin? Now set the trap on the big skin, and after you're done, go down the mountain. Come back up after the fifteenth to set the trap again."
His main purpose in going into the mountains this time was to set traps. The meat of the large dogs was inedible; only the skin mattered. Plus, the price of large hides had skyrocketed this year. If he took the hide with him and the dog-hunting gang to the forest farm to see Leader Chen, his chances of being selected for specimen collection might be higher.
He didn't want to be outdone by that eagle-taming outsider.
The three men took out six large snares from their cloth bags and threw them onto the sled. They hurried towards the direction where someone had set off firecrackers the night before, setting snares and traps along the way.
The commotion last night came from the fifth ridge south of Kaoshantun, which is in the direction of Niubeitun. He happened to have set a trap there. He went to check yesterday but missed it, so he's going again today.
Li Ju'an first took a liking to a patch of hibiscus and boxwood.
Hibiscus and boxwood are the favorites of the Siberian roe deer. During the winter when food is scarce, the roe deer will nibble on the tender shoots of shrubs. If they're lucky, they might even spot a gazelle.
The gazelle is extremely agile and strong, and its movements are unpredictable. He set four large snares with steel wire ropes near the hibiscus and boxwood bushes, then found three points, tied three thin hemp ropes to them, and secured them to thick bushes. To snare the roe deer and gazelle, the snares must be tight to prevent the agile animals from escaping; this requires the hemp ropes to withstand the rebound of the steel wire ropes.
He chose a thin hemp rope, one that wasn't too strong, but rather one that would break with the slightest force. He made a loop of the burnt steel wire rope into a diameter of 55 centimeters, placed it 45 centimeters off the ground, and then draped branches over it to prevent them from touching the steel wire rope, otherwise it wouldn't be able to be looped. This way, it was well concealed and not easily noticeable.
After setting the snare, he threw a few weeds and large leaves around it and that was it.
Along the way, Li Ju'an discovered the footprints of the jumping cat. Thinking that he might as well set a trap, he began to set a trap following the footprints of the jumping cat down the slope.
After they had set up most of the traps, the three of them were close to the fifth ridge of Niubeitun when Lu Zhiqiang suddenly shouted, "There's a hole!"
The entrance to the hole doesn't look very big; it's where some small animal that hibernates dug its burrow and lives. With the recent snowfall, the entrance should have been sealed off by the heavy snow. But there are still traces of the entrance, and faint white steam is rising from it, indicating that there's something inside.
Big Tiger was already excited, trying to dig a hole in the snow with all four limbs. But the snow had melted into ice, which was slippery and hard, and Big Tiger's paws went numb from digging, but he still couldn't make a hole.
Lu Zhiqiang examined the traces at the entrance of the hole but found no footprints. Based on the size of the hole and the nearby plants and shrubs, he confidently stated, "This is the raccoon's hometown. The pelts of these creatures are valuable."
Hammer slipped away again, but this time he wasn't wandering off alone; he brought along Black Panther and Red Wolf, who were already itching to play.
Li Ju'an called to Da Hu and Hua Er, "Go, let's go take a look."
The two stag beetles are masters of smelling. A moment later, Big Tiger returned and dragged his trouser leg under a bush.
Another opening appeared.
Flower Ear also made a discovery, letting out a low, whimpering growl towards yet another cave entrance.
Before long, the two incense sticks, spaced more than 10 meters apart, found three or four holes nearby.
Lu Zhiqiang exclaimed in surprise, "A cunning rabbit has three burrows!"
Li Ju'an observed the number of burrow entrances and the length of their intervals, and was overjoyed. He whispered, "It's not a raccoon dog, it's a badger."
Song Desheng had already dug out a piece of excrement from under the dead leaves in the bushes and disagreed: "It's raccoon dog droppings."
He wasn't entirely sure just by looking at the dried and hardened feces, but after taking a closer sniff, he became certain that it was a raccoon dog.
Li Ju'an laughed and scolded, "You can stick your tongue out like that? You're really going all out."
"Pah! Who stuck out their tongue? Trust me, guys, I really didn't lick it!"
Li Ju'an shook his head and began to set traps at the four holes, two traps at each hole.
He was certain this was a badger's burrow. Despite its short limbs, the badger's forte is digging, its powerful forelimbs constantly pawing. And these creatures are incredibly clever; they don't hibernate deeply, but rather in a semi-hibernating state, allowing similarly semi-hibernating raccoons to live in the burrow's "front hall" to guard the entrance. If danger arises and the hibernating raccoon is awakened, it will sound an alarm.
After setting the trap, all that was left was to wait for the badger to emerge from its burrow. But even if a hibernating badger hears noise outside, it's not so easy for it to abandon its burrow and escape. He used his knife to cut a section of pine wood and struck a match to light one end of the flammable wood. That end caught fire, burned black, and then emitted thick smoke.
The thick smoke dissipated quickly, disappearing as soon as he reached the cave entrance. He blew on the charred stick, revealing a smoldering ember in the charred areas, before black smoke rose. He used the smoke to smoke out the badger's den.