SIKAK THE SKUNK 233 



II 



Sikak the Skunk 



Sikak the skunk it is who supplies the best imita 

 tions of sable. But cleanse the fur never so well, on a 

 damp day it still emits the heavy sickening odour that 

 betrays its real nature. That odour is sikak s invinci 

 ble defence against the white trapper. The hunter 

 may follow the little four-abreast galloping footprints 

 that lead to a hole among stones or to rotten logs, but 

 long before he has reached the nesting-place of his 

 quarry comes a stench against which white blood is 

 powerless. Or the trapper may find an unexpected 

 visitor in one of the pens which he has dug for other 

 animals a little black creature the shape of a squirrel 

 and the size of a cat with white stripings down his 

 back and a bushy tail. It is then a case of a quick 

 deadly shot, or the man will be put to rout by an odour 

 that will pollute the air for miles around and drive 

 him off that section of the hunting-field. The cuttle 

 fish is the only other creature that possesses as power 

 ful means of defence of a similar nature, one drop 

 of the inky fluid which it throws out to hide it from 

 pursuers burning the fisherman s eyes like scalding 

 acid. As far as white trappers are concerned, sikak 

 is only taken by the chance shots of idle days. Yet 

 the Indian hunts the skunk apparently utterly oblivi 

 ous of the smell. Traps, poison, deadfalls, pens are 

 the Indian weapons against the skunk; and a Cree will 

 deliberately skin and stretch a pelt in an atmosphere 

 that is blue with what is poison to the white man. 



The only case I ever knew of white trappers hunt 

 ing the skunk was of three men on the North Sas- 



