252 THE STORY OP THE TRAPPER 



leaves and brush to quiet the pekan s suspicions. Be 

 sides, the pekan has many tricks akin to the wolverine. 

 He is an inveterate thief. There is a well-known in 

 stance of Hudson s Bay trappers having a line of one 

 hundred and fifty marten traps stretching for fifty 

 miles robbed of their bait by pekan. The men short 

 ened the line to thirty miles and for six times in suc 

 cession did pekan destroy the traps. Then the men set 

 themselves to trap the robber. He will rifle a deadfall 

 from the slanting back roof where there is no danger; 

 so the trapper overlays the back with heavy brush. 



Pekan do not yield a rare fur; but they are always 

 at run where the trapper is hunting the rare furs, and 

 for that reason are usually snared at the same time as 

 mink and otter. 



IV 

 Wapistan the Marten 



When Koot went blind on his way home from the 

 rabbit-hunt, he had intended to set out for the pine 

 woods. Though blizzards still howl over the prairie, 

 by March the warm sun of midday has set the sap of 

 the forests stirring and all the woodland life awakens 

 from its long winter sleep. Cougar and lynx and bear 

 rove through the forest ravenous with spring hunger. 

 Otter, too, may be found where the ice mounds of a 

 waterfall are beginning to thaw. But it is not any of 

 these that the trapper seeks. If they cross his path, 

 good they, too, will swell his account at the fur post. 

 It is another of the little chaps that he seeks, a little, 

 long, low-set animal whose fur is now glistening bright 

 on the deep dark overhairs, soft as down in the thick 

 fawn underhairs, wapistan the marten. 



