PAET II 



CHAPTER IX 



THE TAKING OF THE BEAVER 



ALL summer long he had hung about the fur com 

 pany trading-posts waiting for the signs. 



And now the signs had come. 



Foliage crimson to the touch of night-frosts. Crisp 

 autumn days, spicy with the smell of nuts and dead 

 leaves. Birds flying away southward, leaving the woods 

 silent as the snow-padded surface of a frozen pond. 

 Hoar-frost heavier every morning; and thin ice edged 

 round stagnant pools like layers of mica. 



Then he knew it was time to go. And through the 

 Northern forests moved a new presence the trapper. 



Of the tawdry, flash clothing in which popular fancy 

 is wont to dress him he has none. Bright colours would 

 be a danger-signal to game. If his costume has any 

 colour, it is a waist-belt or neck-scarf, a toque or bright 

 handkerchief round his head to keep distant hunters 

 from mistaking him for a moose. For the rest, his 

 clothes are as ragged as any old, weather-worn gar 

 ments. Sleeping on balsam boughs or cooking over a 

 smoky fire will reduce the newness of blanket coat and 

 buckskin jacket to the dun shades of the grizzled forest. 

 A few days in the open and the trapper has the com 

 plexion of a bronzed tree-trunk. 

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