180 ON THE FBOOTIEK. 



Having my good horse under me, I expected to get back 

 to camp with the wolf's skin and the beaver-trap, long before 

 night ; nevertheless, out of consideration for Joe, and on the 

 improbable chance of the absentees returning that day, I 

 had written a statement of my movements across Joe's note ; 

 and, out of consideration for myself, pocketed a good hunch 

 of cold venison before starting. 



By about ten o'clock I was on the wolf's trail again, 

 following on it at a canter, and before I had gone far came 

 to a place where he had sat down. Thence his tracks 

 ceased to show the drag of the chain; either it had got 

 wrapped round and round the trap by the continual jerk 

 caused by the wolfs galloping an improbable conjecture 

 or he had had the sagacity to wrap it round on purpose ; 

 certainly he had sagacity enough to keep in the deepest 

 and lightest snow, and, when necessary, to change his course 

 so as to enable him to do so ; the advantage to him being 

 that while his three unencumbered feet sank at every stride 

 in the snow, the trap with the chain wound round it acting 

 like a snow-shoe on his other one, prevented its sinking, 

 thus practically enabling him to go on four legs instead of 

 three ; and it gave him another advantage over me. My 

 horse, burdened with my weight, broke through the light 

 crust on the surface of the snow and sunk deeply in it at 

 every step, and the soft snow balling in his hoofs, compelled 

 him to go slowly. 



After some hours, during which time I frequently 

 caught sight of the wolf, he, rinding that I still continued 

 to pursue him, tried a new line, and, abandoning the edge 

 of the valley, made for the roughest and most rocky of the 



