UNDER THE NORTH STAR 317 



into his greatest beauty ? The distinctive difference between 

 gray fox and silver is that gray fox has gray hairs among hairs of 

 other color, while silver fox has silver hair tipped with glossiest 

 black on a foundation of downy gray black. 



Even greater confusion surrounds the origin of cross and red 

 and gray. Trappers find all these different cubs in one burrow ; 

 but as the cubs grow, those pronounced cross turn out to be red, 

 or the red becomes cross ; and what they become at maturity, that 

 they remain, varying only with the seasons. 1 It takes many cen- 

 turies to make one perfect rose. Is it the same with the silver fox ? 

 Is he a freak or a climax or the regular product of yearly climatic 

 changes caught in the nick of time by some lucky trapper ? Ask 

 the scientist that question, and he theorizes. Ask the trapper, 

 and he tells you if he could only catch enough silver foxes to study 

 that question, he would quit trapping. In all the maze of ignorance 

 and speculation, there is one anchored fact. While animals turn a 

 grizzled gray with age, the fine gray coats are not caused by age. 

 Young animals of the rarest furs — fox and ermine — are born in 

 ashy color that turns to gray while they are still in their first nest. 



To say that silver fox is costly solely because it is rare is sheerest 

 nonsense. It would be just as sensible to say that labradorite, which 

 is rare, should be as costly as diamonds. It is the intrinsic beauty 

 of the fur, as of the diamonds, that constitutes its first value. The 

 facts that the taking of a silver fox is always pure luck, that the 

 luck comes seldom, that the trapper must have travelled countless 

 leagues by snow-shoe and dog train over the white wastes of the 

 North, that trappers in polar regions are exposed to more dangers 

 and hardships than elsewhere and that the fur must have been 

 carried a long distance to market — add to the first high value of 

 silver fox till it is not surprising that little pelts barely two feet 

 long have sold for prices ranging from #500 to #2000. For the 

 trapper the way to the fortune of a silver fox is the same as the road 

 to fortune for all other men — by the homely trail of every-day 



1 That is, as far as trappers yet know. 



