236 MEN 1 HAVE FISHED WITH. 



several ways, as boiled, fried, broiled or roasted; and we 

 had good bread, coffee, sugar and an occasional bean 

 soup. The fat of the bear and the 'coon was as good as 

 lard, and often our stale bread was soaked and fried. So 

 we had a good substitute for butter and lard, and the only 

 thing that might have been lacking was the potato, which 

 would be difficult to keep, and was too bulky to carry. 

 Surely this was good living for healthy men in a wilder- 

 ness in winter. But from hints which Antoine dropped 

 from time to time this profusion might not last. This 

 was the first idle day of the winter, and as my partner had 

 intimated that he was going to surprise me with a Christ- 

 mas dinner I left him to arrange it, and wandered out 

 with my snowshoes and snow-blinders. 



Heretofore I had always gone up the several little 

 streams which formed the east and west branches of the 

 Bad Ax River, where our traps were set. To-day I 

 would go down the stream, which I had not seen since 

 we brought our provisions up its valley in the fall. I 

 had gone about about two miles when a log invited me 

 to rest. The winter landscape was beautiful; the bluish 

 tints of the twigs against the sky and along the stream 

 relieved the whiteness, and the day was perfect. A rabbit 

 came slowly jumping along, and passed within twenty 

 feet of my log, and soon a fox appeared following its 

 track, but took the alarm at several times twenty feet and 

 trotted off over the hill, with an occasional glance over his 

 shoulder to make sure that the man on the log was not 

 following. I fell to thinking how animals differ, just as 

 men do one dull and unperceiving, and another alert 

 and watchful. A child could have shot the rabbit, but 

 only a rifleman could have touched reynard. 



Then came a thought that food might be scarce with 

 us, as what Antoine had said was recalled. As I under- 



