140 THE MOOSE 



Where for generations the wilderness people had 

 lived unmolested, the inevitable day had come for 

 their haunts to be discovered. 



The trapper had been in the vicinity all the 

 winter, as he hunted alone through the fiercest 

 cold that he might trap the fur-bearers when their 

 pelts were at their best. His trap-lines ran in an 

 opposite direction to that circumvented by the 

 yards, and he rarely roamed outside his beaten 

 trail. Now a deep-laid plan for putting an end to 

 the amazingly planned engineering works of the 

 beaver colony in the backwater of the river had 

 brought him out of his course. To-morrow he 

 would commence ensnaring the world-builders, one 

 by one. 



The winding trail of the moose engaged his 

 attention, and he turned from his way to investi- 

 gate. 



The criss-cross of tracks ran hither and thither 

 in all stages of clearness and obliteration. Some 

 partially snowed under and turned to a cuplike 

 formation, others sharp and distinct, as though cut 

 in by a sculptor's chisel. 



That the band of moose who fed hereabouts had 

 winded or seen him the trapper knew, for the 



