252 THE ARCTIC PRAIRIES 



tracks of single Caribou going here and there, but no 

 trails of large bands. I sent Weeso off to the Indian 

 village, two miles south. He returned to say that it 

 was deserted and that, therefore, the folk had gone 

 after the Caribou, which doubtless were now in the 

 woods south of Artillery Lake. Again the old man was 

 wholly astray in his Caribou forecast. 



That night there was a sharp frost; the first we had 

 had. It made nearly half an inch of ice in all kettles. 

 Why is ice always thickest on the kettles? No doubt 

 because they hold a small body of very still water sur- 

 rounded by highly conductive metal. 



Billy went 'Ho market" yesterday, killing a nice, 

 fat little Caribou. This morning on returning to bring 

 in the rest of the meat we found that a Wolverine had 

 been there and lugged the most of it away. The 

 tracks show that it was an old one accompanied by one 

 or maybe two young ones. We followed them some 

 distance but lost all trace in a long range of rocks. 



The Wolverine is one of the tj^pical animals of the 

 far North. It has an unenviable reputation for being 

 the greatest plague that the hunter knows. Its habit 

 of following to destroy all traps for the sake of the bait 

 is the prime cause of man's hatred, and its cleverness 

 in eluding his efforts at retaliation give it still more 

 importance. 



It is, above all, the dreaded enemy of a cache, and 

 as already seen, we took the extra precaution of put- 

 ting our caches up trees that were protected by a 

 necklace of fishhooks. Most Northern travellers have 

 regaled us with tales of this animal's diabolical clever- 



