THE RARE FURS 307 



the falls keep free from ice. No use setting traps with fish-heads 

 as long as fresh fish are to be had for the taking. Besides, the man 

 has done nothing to conceal his tracks ; and each morning the half- 

 eaten fish lie farther off" the line of the man-trail. 



By and by the man notices that no more half-eaten fish are 

 on his side of the river. Little tracks of webbed feet furrowing a 

 deep rut in the soft snow of the frozen river tell that nekik has taken 

 alarm and is fishing from the other side. And when Christmas 

 comes with a dwindling of the mink-hunt, the man, too, crosses to 

 the other side. Here he finds that the otter tracks have worn a path 

 that is almost a toboggan slide down the crusted snow bank to the 

 iced edge of the pool. By this time nekik's pelt is prime, almost 

 black, and as glossy as floss. By this time, too, the fish are scarce 

 and the epicure has become ravenous as a pauper. One night when 

 the trapper was reconnoitring the fish hole, he had approached the 

 snow bank so noiselessly that he came on a whole colony of otters 

 without their knowledge of his presence. Down the snow bank 

 they tumbled, head-first, tail-first, slithering through the snow with 

 their little paws braced, rolling down on their backs like lads upset 

 from a toboggan, otter after otter till the man learned that the 

 little beasts were not fishing at all, but coasting the snow bank like 

 youngsters on a night frolic. No sooner did one reach the bottom 

 than up he scampered to repeat the fun ; and sometimes two or 

 three went down in a rolling bunch mixed up at the foot of a slide 

 as badly as a couple of toboggans that were unpremeditatedly 

 changing their occupants. Bears wrestle. The kittens of all the 

 cat tribe play hide and seek. Little badger finds it fun to run 

 round rubbing the back of his head on things ; and here was nekik 

 the otter at the favorite amusement of his kind — coasting down 

 a snow bank. 



If the trapper were an Indian, he would lie in wait at the landing- 

 place and spear the otter as they came from the water. But the 

 white man's craft is deeper. He does not wish to frighten the otter 

 till the last has been taken. Coming to the slide by day, he baits 



