THE INDIAN TRAPPER 143 



snapping red mouths with the butt of his weapon; 

 and the foremost beasts roll under. 



But the wolves are fighting from zest of the chase 

 now, as much as from hunger. Leaping over their dead 

 fellows, they dodge the coming sweep of the uplifted 

 arm, and crouch to spring. A great brute is reaching 

 for the forward bound; but a mean, small wolf sneaks 

 to the rear of the hunter s fighting shadow. When the 

 man swings his arm and draws back to strike, this 

 miserable cur, that could not have worried the trapper s 

 dog, makes a quick snap at the bend of his knees. 



Then the trapper s feet give below him. The wolf 

 has bitten the knee sinews to the bone. The pack leap 

 up, and the man goes down. 



And when the spring thaw came, to carry away the 

 heavy snow that fell over the northland that night, 

 the Indians travelling to their summer hunting-grounds 

 found the skeleton of a man. Around it were the bones 

 of three dead wolves ; and farther up the hill were the 

 bleaching remains of a fourth.* 



* A death almost similar to that on the shores of Hudson 

 Bay occurred in the forests of the Boundary, west of Lake Supe 

 rior, a few years ago. In this case eight wolves were found 

 round the body of the dead trapper, and eight holes were empty 

 in his cartridge-belt which tells its own story. 



