52 THE LABKADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. iv. 



eaten, I went to the door, pulled it open and saw a wall 

 of snow. It did not take me long to get out, and when I 

 broke through, the sun was setting. It was at least six 

 days' hard work to clear all my traps after that storm, but 

 then I caught seven martens the next visit, and that paid 

 me well.' 



The desire for accumulating property seems to be deeply 

 implanted in the carcajou or wolverine. Like tame 

 ravens, it does not seem to care much what it steals, so 

 that it can exercise its favourite propensity to commit 

 mischief. Mr. Bernard E. Eoss, chief trader of Mackenzie 

 Eiver District, in the Hudson's Bay Company's service, 

 writes that he knew a hunter and his family leaving their 

 lodge unguarded during their absence, and on their re- 

 turn finding it completely gutted ; the walls were there, 

 but nothing else. Blankets, guns, kettles, axes, cans, 

 knives, and all the other paraphernalia of a trapper's lodge 

 had vanished, and the tracks left by the animal showed 

 who had been the thief. The family set to work, and by 

 carefully following up all the paths, recovered, with some 

 trifling exception, the whole of the property. 



' I got a bear,' resumed Pierre, after a pause, ' in a way 

 that 's worth telling. One day I was making my traps 

 near the forks of the river, soon after I came here, when 

 I saw a bear-track quite fresh in the snow. I had no 

 gun with me, only a large axe. I followed the bear, and 

 after half an hour came to a balsam tree which the wind 

 had blown down ; here I lost the tracks, as a little breeze 

 was sifting them up ; so, after looking round a bit, I sat 

 down on the trunk, and the thought struck me that the 

 bear might be underneath. I listened, and I actually 



