KOOT AND THE BOB-CAT 279 



The sense of feel that is akin to brute instinct gave him the im- 

 pression of a presence. Reason that is man's told him what it 

 might be and what to do. Was he not carrying the snared rabbits 

 over his shoulder? Some hungry flesh-eater, more blood-thirsty 

 than courageous, was still hunting him for the food on his back and 

 only lacked the courage to attack. Koot drew a steel trap from 

 his bag. He did not wish to waste a rabbit-skin, so he baited the 

 spring with a piece of fat bacon, smeared the trap, the snow, every- 

 thing that he had touched with a rabbit-skin, and walked home 

 through the deepening dark to the little log cabin where a sharp 

 " woof- woof " of welcome awaited him. 



That night, in addition to the skins across the doorway, Koot 

 jammed logs athwart — "to keep the cold out," he told himself. 

 Then he kindled a fire on the rough stone hearth built at one end 

 of the cabin and with the little clay pipe beneath his teeth sat down 

 on the stump chair to broil rabbit. The waste of the rabbit he had 

 placed in traps outside the lodge. Once his dog sprang alert with 

 pricked ears. Man and dog heard the sniff — sniff — sniff of 

 some creature attracted to the cabin by the smell of broiling meat, 

 and now rummaging at its own risk among the traps. And once 

 when Koot was stretched out on a bear-skin before the fire puffing 

 at his pipe-stem, drying his moccasins and listening to the fusillade 

 of frost rending ice and earth, a long low piercing wail rose and fell 

 and died away. Instantly from the forest of the swamp came the 

 answering scream — a lifting, tumbling, eldritch shriek. 



"I should have set two traps," says Koot. "They are out in 

 pairs." 



Black is the flag of danger to the rabbit world. The antlered 

 shadows of the naked poplar or the tossing arms of the restless 

 pines, the rabbit knows to be harmless shadows unless their dapple 

 of sun and shade conceals a brindled cat. But a shadow that walks 

 and runs means to the rabbit a foe; so the wary trapper prefers to 

 visit his snares at the hour of the short shadow. 



