CHAPTER II 

 THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS 



It is a grim joke of the animal world that the lazy moose is the 

 moose that gives wings to the feet of the pursuer. When snow 

 comes the trapper must have snow-shoes and moccasins. For 

 both, moose supplies the best material. 



Bees have their drones, beaver their hermits, and moose a ladyfied 

 epicure who draws off from the feeding-yards of the common herd, 

 picks out the sweetest browse of the forest, and gorges herself till 

 fat as a gouty voluptuary. While getting the filling for his snow- 

 shoes, the trapper also stocks his larder ; and if he can find a spinster 

 moose, he will have something better than shredded venison and 

 more delicately flavored than finest teal. 



Sledding his canoe across shallow lakelets, now frozen like rock, 

 still paddling where there is open way, the trapper continues to 

 guide his course up the water-ways. Big game, he knows, comes 

 out to drink at sunrise and sunset; and nearly all the small game 

 frequents the banks of streams either to fish or to prey on the fisher. 



Each night he sleeps in the open with his dog on guard ; or else 

 puts up the cotton tepee, the dog curling outside the tent flap, one 

 ear awake. And each night a net is set for the whitefish that are 

 to supply breakfast, feed the dog, and provide heads for the traps 

 placed among rocks in midstream, or along banks where dainty 

 footprints were in the morning's hoar-frost. Brook trout can still 

 be got in the pools below waterfalls ; but the trapper seldom takes 

 time now to use the line, depending on his gun and fish-net. 



During the Indian's whitefish month — the white man's 



