One day a large fisher struck the line and 

 made havoc of it. Pequam either tore the 

 pen to pieces, or else he entered it craftily 

 from the rear and sprung the deadfall harm- 

 lessly, and then ate the bait at his leisure. 

 A dozen traps were so destroyed, and one 

 valuable marten which had been caught was 

 eaten with the bait. For nearly a month 

 this had continued. Hardly a day but Pe- 

 quam found the line somewhere, destroying 

 traps and good marten skins until his hun- 

 ger was satisfied, and craftily avoiding every 

 trap and device that Newell set beside the 

 line to catch him. It was useless to follow 

 his trail, for, except when he is gorged with 

 food and heavy with sleep, one might as well 

 try to run down a caribou as to chase a wide- 

 awake fisher with the hope of catching him. 



At my suggestion Newell took up five of 

 his large steel traps, which had been set for 

 otter, and we set out one day to outwit Pe- 

 quam by making him think he understood 

 our devices. At a place in the line where 

 the big fisher's visits had been most fre- 

 quent we took away the triggers from three 



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7fie7raf/offfie 

 Cunning One 



