HUNTING THE SNOW 189 



at him, so resourceful, so superior to his almost 

 impossible conditions, his almost innumerable 

 foes. 



We started across the meadow on his trail, but 

 found it leading so straightaway for the ledges, 

 and so continuously blotted out by the passing 

 of the pack, that, striking the wallowy path of 

 a muskrat in the middle of the meadow, we 

 took up the new scent to see what the shuf- 

 fling, cowering water-rat wanted from across the 

 snow. 



A man is known by the company he keeps, by 

 the way he wears his hat, by the manner of his 

 laugh ; but among the wild animals nothing tells 

 more of character than their manner of moving. 

 You can read animal character as easily in the 

 snow as you can read act and direction. 



The timidity, the indecision, the lack of pur- 

 pose, the restless, meaningless curiosity of this 

 muskrat were evident from the first in the log- 

 like, the starting, stopping, returning, going-on 

 track he had ploughed out in the thin snow. 



He did not know where he was going or what 

 he was going for ; he knew only that he insisted 

 upon going back, but all the while kept going 



