196 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



trees are most numerous on the south. The trapper 

 may be waylaid by storms, or starved by sudden migra 

 tion of game from the grounds to which he has come, 

 or run to earth by the ravenous timber-wolves that pur 

 sue the dog teams for leagues ; but the trapper with In 

 dian blood in his veins will not be lost. 



One imminent danger is of accident beyond aid. A 

 young Indian hunter of Moose Factory set out with his 

 wife and two children for the winter hunting-grounds 

 in the forest south of James Bay. To save the daily 

 allowance of a fish for each dog, they did not take the 

 dog teams. When chopping, the hunter injured his leg. 

 The wound proved stubborn. Game was scarce, and 

 they had not enough food to remain in the lodge. 

 Wrapping her husband in robes on the long toboggan 

 sleigh, the squaw placed the younger child beside him 

 and with the other began tramping through the forest 

 drawing the sleigh behind. The drifts were not deep 

 enough for swift snow-shoeing over underbrush, and 

 their speed was not half so speedy as the hunger that 

 pursues northern hunters like the Fenris Wolf of Norse 

 myth. The woman sank exhausted on the snow and 

 the older boy, nerved with fear, pushed on to Moose 

 Factory for help. Guided by the boy back through the 

 forests, the fort people found the hunter dead in the 

 sleigh, the mother crouched forward unconscious from 

 cold, stripped of the clothing which she had wrapped 

 round the child taken in her arms to warm with her 

 own body. The child was alive and well. The fur 

 traders nursed the woman back to life, though she 

 looked more like a withered creature of eighty than a 

 woman barely in her twenties. She explained with a 

 simple unconsciousness of heroism that the ground had 



