38 AN UNPLEASANT ADVENTURE. 



raising the fall-log, support it on one end of this while the 

 other holds the end of the trigger, and your trap is ready and 

 will kill anything smaller than a fox wolves and foxes requiring 

 steel traps, which, instead of fastening to the ground, you simply 

 tie to a rough log, so that the animal soon gets hung up, for if 

 you pegged the trap down, he would bite the foot off and get 

 away. On your way back in the morning, you take out what 

 you have caught and rearrange your baits, generally going 

 down your line twice a week ; some professionals, however, go 

 three times. 



Your trouble is in keeping warm at night, two blankets being 

 all that you can carry ; but I got over this difficulty by leaving 

 a deer-skin bag at the further end of the line of traps, taking it 

 there on a dog-sleigh ; and it is curious that no Indian will 

 ever touch anything left on another man's line, or set a trap 

 near one of his. 



I had one very unpleasant adventure, which happened to me 

 shortly before Christmas, and which very nearly ended badly 

 for me. 



We had with us a small keg of what the Hudson's Bay men 

 call " shrub " a kind of liqueur made with rum which we 

 were keeping for Christmas day ; but one evening, having come 

 home very tired and cold, I thought I would have a glass, and 

 I had just finished it when A-ta-ka-koup came in, accompanied 

 by six other Indians, who happened to be camped near his 

 house one of them being his son-in-law, and whom I had 

 already met. 



Now an Indian has a nose for spirit like that of a hound 

 for a fox ; so they at once smelt the " shrub " and asked for 

 some, but, as I knew they would finish it and that then 



