H4 A SPORTING PARADISE 



great heap of dead logs, and kept up a roaring 

 fire throughout the night, one or the other 

 keeping on guard most of the time. About 

 midnight the thing came down through the 

 forest opposite, across the brook, and stayed 

 there on the hillside for nearly an hour. They 

 could hear the branches crackle as it moved 

 about, and several times uttered a harsh, grating^ 

 long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound. 

 Yet it did not venture near the fire. In the 

 morning the two trappers, after discussing the 

 strange events of the last thirty-six hours, 

 decided that they would shoulder their packs 

 and leave the valley that afternoon. They 

 were the more ready to do this because, in 

 spite of seeing a good deal of game sign, they 

 had caught very little fur. However, it was 

 necessary first to go along the line of their 

 traps and gather them, and this they started 

 to do. 



All the morning they kept together, picking 

 up trap after trap, each one empty. On first 

 leaving camp they had the disagreeable sensation 

 of being followed. In the dense spruce thickets 

 they occasionally heard a branch snap after they 

 had passed ; and now and then there were slight 



