2i 8 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



barkings of the dog increase in fury, and when the trapper emerges 

 in the open, he finds the wolf has straggled a hundred yards farther. 

 That was the meaning of the dog's alarm. Going back to cover, 

 the hunter again advances. But the wolf keeps moving leisurely, 

 and each time the man sights his game it is still out of range. The 

 man runs faster now, determined to get abreast of the wolf and 

 utterly heedless of the increasing danger, as each step puts greater 

 distance between him and his lodge. He will pass the wolf, come 

 out in front and shoot. 



But when he comes to the edge of the woods to get his aim, 

 there is no wolf, and the dog is barking furiously at his own moonlit 

 shadow. The wolf, after the fashion of his kind, has apparently 

 disappeared into the ground, just as he always seems to rise from 

 the earth. The trapper thinks of the "loup-garou," but no wolf- 

 demon of native legend devoured the very real substance of that 

 fox. 



The dog stops barking, gives a whine and skulks to his master's 

 feet, while the trapper becomes suddenly aware of low-crouching 

 forms gliding through the underbrush. Eyes look out of the dark 

 in the flash of green lights from a prism. The figures are in hiding, 

 but the moon is shining with a silvery clearness that throws moving 

 wolf shadows on the snow to the trapper's very feet. 



Then the man knows that he has been tricked. 



The Indian knows the wolf-pack too well to attempt flight 

 from these sleuths of the forest. He knows, too, one thing that 

 wolves of forest and prairie hold in deadly fear — fire. Two or 

 three shots ring into the darkness followed by a yelping howl, 

 which tells him there is one wolf less, and the others will hold off 

 at a safe distance. Contrary to the woodman's traditions of 

 chopping only on a windy day, the Indian whips out his axe and 

 chops with all his might till he has wood enough for a roaring fire. 

 That will keep the rascals away till the pack goes off in full cry, 

 or daylight comes. 



Whittling a limber branch from a sapling, the Indian hastily 



