Bingo 



about the other till there was a sharp 'clank' 

 and the iron jaws of trap No. 3 closed tight on 

 my left foot. 



The terrors of the situation did not, at 

 first, impress me, but I soon found that all my 

 struggles were in vain. I could not get free 

 from either trap or move the traps together, 

 and there I lay stretched out and firmly staked 

 to the ground. 



What would become of me now ? There was 

 not much danger of freezing for the cold weather 

 was over, but Kennedy's Plain was never visited 

 excepting by the winter wood-cutters. No one 

 knew where I had gone, and unless I could man- 

 age to free myself there was no prospect ahead 

 but to be devoured by wolves, or else die of cold 

 and starvation. 



As I lay there the red sun went down over the 

 spruce swamp west of the plain, and a shorelark 

 on a gopher mound a few yards off twittered his 

 evening song, just as one had done the night be- 

 fore at our shanty door, and though the numb 

 pains were creeping up my arm, and a deadly chill 

 possessed me, I noticed how long his little ear- 

 tufts were. Then my thoughts went to the com- 



178 



