THE INDIAN TRAPPER 133 



value would not repay the risk of the hunt. But all 

 these worthless, ravening rascals are watching the traps 

 as keenly as the trapper does ; and would eat up a silver 

 fox, that would be the fortune of any hunter. 



The Indian comes to the brush where he has set 

 his rabbit snares across a runway. His dog sniffs the 

 ground, whining. The crust of the snow is broken by 

 a heavy tread. The twigs are all trampled and rabbit 

 fur is fluffed about. The game has been rifled away. 

 The Indian notices several things. The rabbit has been 

 devoured on the spot. That is unlike the wolverine. 

 He would have carried snare, rabbit and all off for a 

 guzzle in his own lair. The footprints have the appear 

 ance of having been brushed over; so the thief had a 

 bushy tail. It is not the lynx. There is no trail away 

 from the snare. The marauder has come with a long 

 leap and gone with a long leap. The Indian and his 

 dog make a circuit of the snare till they come on the 

 trail of the intruder; and its size tells the Indian 

 whether his enemy be fox or wolf. 



He sets no more snares across that runway, for 

 the rabbits have had their alarm. Going through the 

 brush he finds a fresh runway and sets a new snare. 



Then his snow-shoes are winging him over the 

 drifts to the next trap. It is a deadfall. Nothing is 

 in it. The bait is untouched and the trap left undis 

 turbed. A wolverine would have torn the thing to 

 atoms from very wickedness, chewed the bait in two, 

 and spat it out lest there should be poison. The fox 

 would have gone in and had his back broken by the 

 front log. And there is the same brush work over the 

 trampled snow, as if the visitor had tried to sweep out 

 his own trail ; and the same long leap away, clearing ob- 



