covering or hiding his game he made, at a , 

 little distance, a circle of tracks, going around 

 his game five or six times and leaving as 

 many plain boundary lines in the snow. My 

 first thought at the time — and I hold it still 

 — was that Pequam was a young fisher, and 

 had left a warning to any prowlers that 

 might find his game. When I found it, only 

 a pair of moose-birds had disregarded the 

 warning; but I did not know, at the time, 

 of Pequam's sleepy habit after eating, and 

 it may be that he was somewhere near, 

 drowsing away in a hollow log, and had 

 made the cunning circles of tracks to hide 

 his trail and to confuse any one who should 

 attempt to find him. 



It is in hunting the porcupine without 

 injury to himself that Pequam's cunning is 

 most manifest. Unk Wunk is one of the 

 unanswered questions of the wilderness ; so 

 stupid, and yet so carefully shielded from 

 the harm and hunger that torments all other 

 creatures. He is always fat, while crafty 

 and powerful beasts are starving ; and his 

 armor of pointed quills generally shields him 



TfieTrai/offfie 

 Cunning One 



