THE LIFE OF THE TRAPPER 301 



way, the scanty cooking utensils and the bed of 

 sapling covered over with balsam boughs, all be- 

 spoke poverty, yet the man, each winter, made from 

 four hundred to five hundred and fifty dollars by 

 trapping, and supported in comparative comfort 

 his sister and old invalid father who lived in a 

 cottage near the settlement. Joe had but one arm, 

 yet he could use that one as well as most men can 

 use two. Only when it came to washing his hand 

 did he experience any great difficulty. His line of 

 two hundred traps extended over forty miles of 

 country, and every two weeks these had to be 

 visited. At intervals along the line small cabins 

 were built where, if necessary, he could spend the 

 night, for the winter days in the north are very 

 short and travelling on snow-shoes over soft snow 

 is slow work. These outlying huts are, if possible, 

 even more primitive than the one just described. 

 Yet they answer all purposes. We can imagine Joe 

 starting out on his round, too experienced a trapper 

 to build castles in the air such as the novice delights 

 in, for well does Joe know that unprecedented 

 numbers of pelts are only taken from traps that 

 are set in the lands of happy imagination. Should 

 the day be fine and the snow in good condition, the 

 task will be comparatively easy and he will be able 

 to visit trap after trap in quick succession. Perhaps 

 ten, twenty, thirty or forty may be visited and no 

 animals found. In one, perhaps, the snow has 

 drifted in and clogged the trap, and the footprints 

 show that a mink has entered, eaten the bait, and 

 left, satisfied with a full meal, asking no questions 

 as to how it came there Then the trapper knows 



