THE INCONNU WHAT IT IS NOT 



British flag which, of course, has more traditions 

 than any other in regard to sport. In plain United 

 States, we resolved to give any inconnu a run for 

 its money if it ever locked horns with us. At that 

 time we thought it had horns. 



Time passed and we saw no inconnu, though we 

 gumshoed round the camp every night looking for 

 tracks. We got to Fort MacMurray and still had 

 seen none. Most of the population of Fort Mac- 

 Murray bears the name of Loutit, on account of 

 an active ancestor who arrived there some years 

 ago and established a family tree which is still grow- 

 ing; but not even any of the Loutit family, which 

 covers several degrees of latitude, had ever seen an 

 inconnu there. Neither, though we kept a sharp 

 watch day and night with field-glasses, did we dis- 

 cover any inconnu all the way down the river to 

 Lake Athabasca. 



No one at Chippewyan had ever heard of an in- 

 connu in that neighborhood. We began to think 

 we had been made victims of a cruel hoax, and 

 we rechristened the inconnu as the bull-connu, clas- 

 sifying it with the jokes about the handle of a valve 

 or the insects among the type which are shown to 

 the cub compositor in a printing office. 



When we reached Smith's Landing at the falls 

 of Great Slave River, the plot began to thicken. We 



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