CHAPTER XV 



KOOT AND THE BOB-CAT 



OLD whaling ships, that tumble round the world 

 and back again from coast to coast over strange seas, 

 hardly ever suffer any of the terrible disasters that are 

 always overtaking the proud men-of-war and swift 

 liners equipped with all that science can do for them 

 against misfortune. Ask an old salt why this is, and 

 he will probably tell you that he feels his way forward 

 or else that he steers by the same chart as that jerk 

 ing his thumb sideways from the wheel towards some 

 sea gull careening over the billows. A something, that 

 is akin to the instinct of wild creatures warning them 

 when to go north for the summer, when to go south 

 for the winter, when to scud for shelter from coming 

 storm, guides the old whaler across chartless seas. 



So it is with the trapper. He may be caught in 

 one of his great steel-traps and perish on the prairie. 

 He may run short of water and die of thirst on the 

 desert. He may get his pack horses tangled up in a 

 valley where there is no game and be reduced to the 

 alternative of destroying what will carry him back to 

 safety or starving with a horse still under him, before 

 he can get over the mountains into another valley 

 but the true trapper will literally never lose himself. 

 Lewis and Clark rightly merit the fame of having first 

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