KOOT AND THE BOB-CAT 213 



under cover parallel to the man, looking with rabbit 

 curiosity at this strange newcomer to the swamp home 

 of the animal world. Root s sense of feel told him 

 that it wasn t a rabbit; but he tried to persuade him 

 self that it was, the way a timid listener persuades her 

 self that creaking floors are burglars. Thinking of 

 his many snares, Koot smiled and walked on. Then it 

 came again, that feel of something coursing behind 

 the underbrush in the gloom of the gathering darkness. 

 Koot stopped short and listened and listened 

 listened to a snow-muffled silence, to a desolating soli 

 tude that pressed in on the lonely hunter like the 

 waves of a limitless sea round a drowning man. 



The sense of feel that is akin to brute instinct gave 

 him the impression of a presence. Reason that is 

 man s told him what it might be and what to do. Was 

 he not carrying the snared rabbits over his shoulder? 

 Some hungry flesh-eater, more bloodthirsty than cour 

 ageous, was still hunting him for the food on his back 

 and only lacked the courage to attack. Koot drew a 

 steel-trap from his bag. He did not wish to waste a 

 rabbit-skin, so he baited the spring with a piece of fat 

 bacon, smeared the trap, the snow, everything that he 

 had touched with a rabbit-skin, and walked home 

 through the deepening dark to the little log cabin 

 where a sharp &quot; woof-woof &quot; of welcome awaited him. 



That night, in addition to the skins across the door 

 way, Koot jammed logs athwart; &quot;to keep the cold 

 out &quot; he told himself. Then he kindled a fire on the 

 rough stone hearth built at one end of the cabin and 

 with the little clay pipe beneath his teeth sat down 

 on the stump chair to broil rabbit. The waste of the 

 rabbit he had placed in traps outside the lodge. Once 



