JOHN COLTER FREE TRAPPER 103 



Turning off the Jefferson, the trappers headed their 

 canoe up a side stream, probably one of those marshy 

 reaches where beavers have formed a swamp by dam 

 ming up the current of a sluggish stream. Such quiet 

 waters are favourite resorts for beaver and mink and 

 marten and pekan. Setting their traps only after 

 nightfall, the two men could not possibly have put out 

 more than forty or fifty. Thirty traps are a heavy day s 

 work for one man. Six prizes out of thirty are con 

 sidered a wonderful run of luck; but the empty traps 

 must be examined as carefully as the successful ones. 

 Many that have been mauled, &quot; scented &quot; by a beaver 

 scout and left, must be replaced. Others must have 

 fresh bait; others, again, carried to better grounds 

 where there are more game signs. 



Either this was a very lucky morning and the men 

 were detained taking fresh pelts, or it was a very un 

 lucky morning and the men had decided to trap farther 

 up-stream ; for when the mists began to rise, the hunt 

 ers were still in their canoe. Leaving the beaver mead 

 ow, they continued paddling up-stream away from the 

 Jefferson. A more hidden watercourse they could 

 hardly have found. The swampy beaver-runs narrowed, 

 the shores rose higher and higher into rampart walls, 

 and the dark-shadowed waters came leaping down in 

 the lumpy, uneven runnels of a small canon. You can 

 always tell whether the waters of a canon are com 

 pressed or not, whether they come from broad, swampy 

 meadows or clear snow streams smaller than the canon. 

 The marsh waters roll down swift and black and turbid, 

 raging against the crowding walls ; the snow streams 

 leap clear and foaming as champagne, and are in too 

 great a hurry to stop and quarrel with the rocks. It is 



