202 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



November — the weather has become colder and colder ; but the 

 trapper never indulges in the big log fire that delights the heart 

 of the amateur hunter. That would drive game a week's tracking 

 from his course. Unless he wants to frighten away nocturnal 

 prowlers, a little chip fire, such as the fishermen of the Banks use 

 in their dories, is all the trapper allows himself. 



First snow silences the rustling leaves. First frost quiets the flow 

 of waters. Except for the occasional splitting of a sap-frozen tree, 

 or the far howl of a wolf-pack, there is the stillness of death. And 

 of all quiet things in the quiet forest, the trapper is the quietest. 



As winter closes in the ice-skim of the large lakes cuts the bark 

 canoe like a knife. The canoe is abandoned for snow-shoes and 

 the cotton tepee for more substantial shelter. 



If the trapper is a white man he now builds a lodge near the 

 best hunting-ground he has found. Around this he sets a wide 

 circle of traps at such distances their circuit requires an entire 

 day, and leads the trapper out in one direction and back in another, 

 without retracing the way. Sometimes such lodges run from valley 

 to valley. Each cabin is stocked ; and the hunter sleeps where 

 night overtakes him. But this plan needs two men ; for if the 

 traps are not closely watched, the wolverine will rifle away a price- 

 less fox as readily as he eats a shabby muskrat. The stone fire- 

 place stands at one end. Moss, clay, and snow chink up the logs. 

 Parchment across a hole serves as window. Poles and brush 

 make the roof, or perhaps the remains of the cotton tent stretched 

 at a steep angle to slide off the accumulating weight of snow. 



But if the trapper is an Indian, or the white man has a messenger 

 to carry the pelts marked with his name to a friendly trading-post, 

 he may not build a lodge ; but move from hunt to hunt as the 

 game changes feeding-ground. In this case he uses the abuckwan — 

 canvas — for a shed tent, with one side sloping to the ground, 

 banked by brush and snow, the other facing the fire, both tent 

 and fire on such a slope that the smoke drifts out while the heat 

 reflects in. Pine and balsam boughs, with the wood end pointing 



