AREA OF TRAP SETTING 187 



the best three months for fur, viz. November, 

 December, and January, and visited his trap- 

 line every week with equal success, his total 

 catch (thirteen weeks x ten animals) taken in a 

 season would represent practically three animals 

 to every mile of territory. One hundred and 

 thirty animals, the total thus arrived at, is, 

 however, a much larger catch than is common, 

 and would in all probability, on an average, be 

 much reduced by spells of bad trapping weather 

 lasting over a week or two, and consequent less 

 productive days than the one I write of, which 

 was in any case, apparently, a particularly suc- 

 cessful one. Then, too, traps are sometimes 

 changed to fresh localities, often as far afield as 

 three days from the trapper's cabin, which 

 vastly increases the area covered ; so that, all 

 things considered, it may even be doubtful if 

 one mile can produce to the trapper one fur- 

 bearing animal in a season in the Far North 

 country immediately south of the Barren Grounds. 



All fur-bearing animals, whose kind have been 

 hunted and trapped for generations, are exceed- 

 ingly wary, and it is a revelation to a novice 

 to watch an Indian gravely make his sets with 

 superb cunning, sufficient, in some instances, 

 to outwit the most wily of quarry. 



I will endeavour to describe how Gullfoot's 

 traps were set, which are the usual Indian 

 methods. 



His fox-traps, without exception, were always 

 set in the open snow on the ice near some promi- 

 nent shore point of an expansive lake, or near an 

 island ; or in the narrows which sometimes con- 



