ANTOINE GARDAPEE. 215 



yourself and partner, wash your underclothing, mend 

 clothes, moccasins or shoe packs and snowshoes, besides 

 cleaning guns, running bullets and doing the hundred 

 and one things that must be done, keeps one busy every 

 hour of daylight and often afterward. It is an inde- 

 pendent sort of life, free from being bossed ; but it is hard 

 work in a healthy climate, and full of adventure to one 

 who loves it. 



Antoine looked over my skins. They comprised one 

 otter, two mink, one ermine or white weasel, one fisher 

 or "black-cat," which he called by the Indian name of 

 o-jig, and is a strange animal of the mink or weasel fam- 

 ily which the naturalists know as Mustela canadensis, but 

 it also called "pekan" and other names. There was also 

 a foot and part of a leg, saved for Antoine's identifica- 

 tion, which he called sable, an animal better known as 

 pine marten. Then came the skin of the unknown 

 beast. When he saw that he jumped and yelled. Then 

 he shook hands with me and said: "You b'en done it; 

 you killed de ole dev', old Carcajou; he break all de trap 

 you set; he know all 'bout trap, an' he go in on hin' end 

 and steal bait. He follow you' track to all you' trap, 

 and w'en he fin' he break 'em, mebbe he steal 'em. Oh, 

 he spile our trap all a time, but you got-a heem. Shake." 



It was a wolverine, an animal with many names, and 

 the worst enemy the trapper meets. The badger is also 

 called carcajou. 



A day spent in stretching and fleshing skins, and then 

 Antoine started to run his line. Our bake oven had 

 fallen in, and I brought better stones from the brook and 

 built it anew in the fireplace, cooked my dinner and sup- 

 per from the carcass of a deer, which Antoine had killed 

 and dressed, sat by the fire, smoked a while and turned 

 in and slept the sleep of the just. Tired and worn out, 



