00-KOO-HOO PLAYS THE GAME 135 



they shoot the bear at night while he passes on his runway; 

 and to attract the bear they imitate the cry of a cub in distress. 

 Steel traps, too, are set for bears. They are very strong with 

 big double springs and weigh about twenty pounds. They, 

 too, are set on the runway of the bears, and are carefully 

 covered with leaves or moss. No bait is used on the trap, but 

 syrup or honey is spread upon a near-by tree to induce the bear 

 to step in the trap. 



MARASTY AND THE BEAR 



But all bear traps are dangerous to mankind and not in- 

 frequently a man is caught in one. In 1899 a half-breed 

 hunter by the name of Marasty, who lived near Green Lake, 

 about 150 miles north of Prince Albert, went one late spring day 

 to visit his traps, and in the course of his trip came upon one of 

 his deadfalls set for bear, from which he noticed the bait had 

 been removed, although the trap had not been sprung. Before 

 rebaiting it, however, he built a fire to boil his tea-pail, and sat 

 down to eat his lunch. 



After refreshment, Marasty, being a lazy man, decided to 

 enter the trap from in front, instead of first opening up the 

 rear and entering from that quarter, as he should have done. 

 He got along all right until he started to back out, when in 

 some way he jarred the trigger, and, just as he was all free of 

 the ground-log save his right arm, down came the ponderous 

 drop-log with its additional weight of platform and stones. It 

 caught him just above the elbow, crushed his arm flat, and 

 held him a prisoner in excruciating pain. The poor wretch 

 nearly swooned. Later, he thought of his knife. He would 

 try to cut the log in two and thus free himself. He knew that, 

 handicapped as he was, though he worked feverishly and 

 incessantly, the task would demand many hours of furious toil. 



After a while the wind arose and re-kindled his dying fire 



