3 i2 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



in the steel jaws, little wapistan must wait — wait for what ? For 

 the same thing that comes to the poor "fool-hen" when wapistan 

 goes Crashing through the brush after her ; for the same thing that 

 comes to the baby squirrels when wapistan climbs a tree to rob the 

 squirrel's nest, eat the young, and live in the rifled house; for the 

 same thing that comes to the hoary marmot whistling his spring 

 tune just outside his rocky den when wapistan, who has climbed up, 

 pounces down from above. Little death-dealer he has been all his 

 life ; and now death comes to him for a nobler cause than the stuffing 

 of a greedy maw — for the clothing of a creature nobler than him- 

 self — man. 



The otter can protect himself by diving, even diving under 

 snow. The mink has craft to hide himself under leaves so that the 

 sharpest eyes cannot detect him. Both mink and otter furs 



have very little of that animal smell which enables the foragers to 

 follow their trail. What gift has wapistan, the marten, to protect 

 himself against all the powers that prey ? His strength and his 

 wisdom lie in the little stubby feet. These can climb. 



A trapper's dog had stumbled on a marten in a stump hole. A 

 snap of the marten's teeth sent the dog back with a jump. Wapis- 

 tan will hang on to the nose of a dog to the death ; and trappers' 

 dogs grow cautious. Before the dog gathered courage to make 

 another rush, the marten escaped by a rear knot-hole, getting the 

 start of his enemy by fifty yards. Off they raced, the dog spending 

 himself in fury, the marten keeping under the thorny brush where 

 his enemy could not follow, then across open snow where the dog 

 gained, then into the pine woods where the trail ended on the snow. 

 Where had the fugitive gone ? When the man came up, he first 

 searched for log holes. There were none. Then he lifted some of 

 the rocks. There was no trace of wapistan. But the dog kept 

 baying a special tree, a blasted trunk, bare as a mast pole and 

 seemingly impossible for any animal but a squirrel to climb. Know- 

 ing the trick by which creatures like the bob-cat can flatten their 

 body into a resemblance of a tree trunk, the trapper searched care- 



