228 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



like the lithe bounds of a pouncing mountain-cat. With tread 

 soft as the velvet paw of a panther, he steals through the cane- 

 brake parting the reeds before each pace, brushing aside softly 



— silently what might crush ! — snap ! — sound ever so slight 

 an alarm to the little pricked ears of a shabby head tossing from 

 side to side — jerk — jerk — from right to left — from left to 

 right — always on the listen ! — on the listen ! — for prey ! — for 

 prey ! 



"Oh, for sure, that Ba'tiste, he was but a fool-hunter," as his 

 comrades afterward said (it is always so very plain afterward) ; 

 "that Ba'tiste, he was a fool! What man else go step — step — 

 into the marsh after a bear !" 



But the truth was that Ba'tiste, the cunning rascal, always 

 succeeded in coming out of the marsh, out of the bush, out of the 

 windfall, sound as a top, safe and unscratched, with a bear skin 

 over his shoulder, the head swinging pendant to show what sort 

 of fellow he had mastered. 



"Dat wan! — ah! — diable ! — he has long sharp nose — he 

 was thin — thin as a barrel all gone but de hoops — ah ! — voila ! 



— he was wan ugly garcon, was dat bear !" 



Where the hunters found tufts of fur on the sage brush, bits of 

 skin on the spined cactus, the others might vow coyotes had worried 

 a badger. Ba'tiste would have it that the badger had been slain 

 by a bear. The cached carcass of fawn or doe, of course, meant 

 bear ; for the bear is an epicure that would have meat gamy. To 

 that the others would agree. 



And so the shortening autumn days with the shimmering heat 

 of a crisp noon and the noiseless chill of starry twilights found the 

 trappers canoeing leisurely upstream from the northern tributaries 

 of the Missouri nearing the long overland trail that led to the hunt- 

 ing-fields in Canada. 



One evening they came to a place bounded by high cliff banks 

 with the flats heavily wooded by poplar and willow. Ba'tiste had 

 found signs that were hot — oh ! so hot ! The mould of an up- 



