THE FRENCH TRAPPER 61 



been scented. Whether the wolverine knows poison, 

 he is too wary to experiment on doubtful diet. The 

 exposing of the traps tells of the curiosity which char 

 acterizes the wolverine. Other creatures would have 

 had too much fear. The tracks run back to cover, and 

 not across country like the badger s or the fox s. 



Fearless, curious, gluttonous, wary, and suspicious, 

 the mischief-maker and the freebooter and the criminal 

 of the animal world, a scavenger to save the northland 

 from pollution of carrion, and a scourge to destroy 

 wounded, weaklings, and laggards the wolverine has 

 the nose of a fox, with long, uneven, tusk-like teeth 

 that seem to be expressly made for tearing. The eyes 

 are well set back, greenish, alert with almost human 

 intelligence of the type that preys. Out of the fulness 

 of his wrath one trapper gave a perfect description of 

 the wolverine. He didn t object, he said, to being out 

 run by a wolf, or beaten by a respectable Indian, but to 

 be outwitted by a little beast the size of a pig with the 

 snout of a fox, the claws of a bear, and the fur of a 

 porcupine s quills, was more than he could stand. 



In the economy of nature the wolverine seems to 

 have but one design destruction. Beaver-dams two 

 feet thick and frozen like rock yield to the ripping on 

 slaught of its claws. He robs everything: the musk- 

 rats haycock houses; the gopher burrows; the cached 

 elk and buffalo calves under hiding of some shrub 

 while the mothers go off to the watering-place; the 

 traps of his greatest foe, man; the cached provisions of 

 the forest ranger; the graves of the dead; the very 

 tepees and lodges and houses of Indian, half-breed, and 

 white man. While the wolverine is averse to crossing 



O 



man s track, he will follow it for days, like a shark 



