THE INDIAN TRAPPER 215 



scent. This time the Indian makes two or three circuits ; but 

 the snow is so crusted it is impossible to tell whether the scratchings 

 lead out to the open or back to the border of snow-drifted woods. 

 If the animal had followed the line of the traps by running just 

 inside the brush, the Indian would know. But the midwinter day 

 is short, and he has no time to explore the border of the thicket. 



Perhaps he has a circle of thirty traps. Of that number he 

 hardly expects game in more than a dozen. If six have a prize, 

 he has done well. Each time he stops to examine a trap he must 

 pause to cover all trace of the man-smell, daubing his own tracks 

 with castoreum, or pomatum, or bears' grease ; sweeping the snow 

 over every spot touched by his hand ; dragging the flesh side of 

 a fresh pelt across his own trail. 



Mid-day comes, the time of the short shadow ; and the Indian 

 trapper has found not a thing in his traps. He only knows that 

 some daring enemy has dogged the circle of his snares. That 

 means he must kill the marauder, or find new hunting-grounds. 

 If he had doubt about swift vengeance for the loss of a rabbit, he 

 has none when he comes to the next trap. He sees what is too 

 much for words : what entails as great loss to the poor Indian 

 trapper as an exchange crash to the white man. One of his best 

 steel traps lies a little distance from the pole to which it was attached. 

 It has been jerked up with a great wrench and pulled as far as the 

 chain would go. The snow is trampled and stained and covered 

 with gray fur as soft and silvery as chinchilla. In the trap is a 

 little paw, fresh cut, scarcely frozen. He had caught a silver fox, 

 the fortune of which hunters dream, as prospectors of gold, and 

 speculators of stocks, and actors of fame. But the wolves, the 

 great, black wolves of the Far North, with eyes full of a treacherous 

 green fire and teeth like tusks, had torn the fur to scraps and de- 

 voured the fox not an hour before the trapper came. 



He knows now what his enemy is ; for he has come so suddenly 

 on their trail he can count four different footprints, and claw-marks 

 of different length. They have fought about the little fox; and 



