274 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



the forests of the Pacific slope. How did these coasters of the 

 wilds guide themselves over prairies that were a chartless sea and 

 mountains that were a wilderness ? How does the wavey know 

 where to find the rush-grown inland pools ? Who tells the caribou 

 mother to seek refuge on islands where the water will cut off the 

 wolves that would prey on her young ? 



Something, which may be the result of generations of accumu- 

 lated observation, guides the wavey and the caribou. Something, 

 which may be the result of unconscious inference from a lifetime 

 of observation, guides the man. In the animal we call it instinct, 

 in the man, reason ; and in the case of the trapper tracking path- 

 less wilds, the conscious reason of the man seems almost merged 

 in the automatic instinct of the brute. It is not sharp-sightedness — 

 though no man is sharper of sight than the trapper. If is not acute- 

 ness of hearing — though the trapper learns to listen with the 

 noiseless stealth of the pencil-eared lynx. It is not touch — in 

 the sense of tactile contact — any more than it is touch that tells 

 a suddenly awakened sleeper of an unexpected noiseless presence 

 in a dark room. It is something deeper than the tabulated five 

 senses, a sixth sense — a sense of feel, without contact — a sense 

 on which the whole sensate world writes its record as on a palimpsest. 

 This palimpsest is the trapper's chart, this sense of feel, his weapon 

 against the instinct of the brute. What part it plays in the life of 

 every ranger of the wilds can best be illustrated by telling how Koot 

 found his way to the fur post after the rabbit-hunt. 



When the midwinter lull falls on the hunt, there is little use 

 in the trapper going far afield. Moose have "yarded up." Bear 

 have "holed up" and the beaver are housed till dwindling stores 

 compel them to come out from their snow-hidden domes. There 

 are no longer any buffalo for the trapper to hunt during the lull ; 

 but what buffalo formerly were to the hunter, rabbit are to-day. 

 Shields and tepee covers, moccasins, caps and coats, thongs and 

 meat, the buffalo used to supply. These are now supplied by 



