scent and running a back track, instead of 

 turning, as any other animal would have 

 done, he simply leaped, whirled in the air 

 like a flash, and came down in his tracks 

 facing in the opposite direction. It was the 

 quickest, the most intense action I have 

 ever seen in a living animal ; and yet it was 

 probably just an ordinary movement in Pe- 

 quam's daily life. An instant later he had 

 picked up the trail and darted away, abso- 

 lutely unconscious that I had watched him. 

 As a hunter Pequam has no equal among 

 the Wood Folk. He follows a trail with all 

 the persistency of a weasel, and he darts for- 

 ward with marvelous quickness when his 

 nose has brought him within striking dis- 

 tance of his game. Of a score of fisher trails 

 that I have followed in the winter woods, 

 never a one but brought me sooner or later 

 to the scene of his killing, with its record 

 written as plainly as if the eye had seen it 

 all. You may follow the track of Eleemos 

 the fox, the Sly One as Simmo calls him, for 

 days at a time, and find only that he has 

 caught nothing and has lain down to sleep 



229 



ffie*!77sfier 



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