THE TAKING OF THE BEAVER 191 



trapper's tools. Whether he hunts from point to point all winter, 

 travelling light and taking nothing but absolute necessaries, or 

 builds a central lodge, where he leaves full store and radiates out 

 to the hunting-grounds, at least four things must be in his tool- 

 bag : a woodman's axe ; a gimlet to bore holes in his snow-shoe 

 frame ; a crooked knife — not the sheathed dagger of fiction, but 

 a blade crooked hook-shape, somewhat like a farrier's knife, at one 

 end — to smooth without splintering, as a carpenter's plane ; and 

 a small chisel to use on the snow-shoe frames and wooden con- 

 trivances that stretch the pelts. 



If accompanied by a boy, who carries half the pack, the hunter 

 may take more tools ; but the old trapper prefers to travel light. 

 Firearms, ammunition, a common hunting-knife, steel traps, a 

 cotton-factory tepee, a large sheet of canvas, locally known as 

 abuckzvan, for a shed tent, complete the trapper's equipment. His 

 dog is not part of the equipment :, it is fellow-hunter and com- 

 panion. 



From the moose must come the heavy filling for the snow-shoes ; 

 but the snow-shoes will not be needed for a month, and there is no 

 haste about shooting an unfound moose while mink and muskrat 

 and otter and beaver are waiting to be trapped. With the dog 

 showing his wisdom by sitting motionless as an Indian bowman, 

 the trapper steps into his canoe and pushes out. 



Eye and ear alert for sign of game or feeding-place, where traps 

 would be effective, the man paddles silently on. If he travels 

 after nightfall, the chances are his craft will steal unawares close 

 to a black head above a swimming body. With both wind and 

 current meeting the canoe, no suspicion of his presence catches 

 the scent of the sharp-nosed swimmer. Otter or beaver, it is 

 shot from the canoe. With a leap over bow or stern — over his 

 master's shoulder if necessary, but never sideways, lest the re- 

 bound cause an upset — the dog brings back his quarry. But 

 this is only an aside, the haphazard shot of an amateur hunter, 

 not the sort of trapping that fills the company's lofts with fur bales. 



