00-KOO-HOO'S EL DORADO 85 



The Chipewyan and Slave Indians set their traps inside 

 a lodge made of eight or ten poles, seven or eight feet in length, 

 placed together lodge fashion and banked round with a wall of 

 brush to prevent the fox entering except by the doorway. The 

 trap is set in the usual way, just outside the entrance, the chain 

 being fastened to one of the door poles. Instead, however, 

 of being placed on the snow around the trap, the mixed bait is 

 put on a bit of rabbit skin fastened in the centre of the lodge; 

 the idea being that the fox will step on the trap when he en- 

 deavours to enter. The Louchieux Indian sets his trap the 

 foregoing way, but in addition he sets a snare in the doorway of 

 the lodge, not so much to catch and hold the fox, as to check him 

 from leaping in without treading on the trap. 



Oo-koo-hoo told me that whenever a trap set in the usual 

 way had failed to catch a fox, he then tried to take advantage 

 of the cautious and suspicious nature of the animal by casting 

 about on the snow little bits of iron, and re-setting and covering 

 his trap on the crest of some little mound close at hand without 

 any bait whatever. The fox, returning to the spot where he 

 had scented and seen the bait before, would now scent the iron, 

 and becoming puzzled over the mystery would try to solve it 

 by going to the top of the mound to sit down and think it over; 

 and thus he would be caught. 



Another way to try for a fox that has been nipped in a trap 

 and yet has got away is to take into account the strange fact 

 that the animal will surely come back to investigate the 

 source of the trouble. The hunter re-sets the trap in its old 

 position and in the usual way; then, a short distance off, he 

 builds a httle brush tepee, something hke a lynx-lodge, which 

 has a base of about four feet, and by means of a snare fastened 

 to a tossing-pole, he hangs a rabbit with its hind feet about six 

 inches above the snow. A mixed-bait stick is placed a little 

 farther back, in order to attract the fox, while another trap is 

 set just below the rabbit. The idea of re-setting the first trap 



