RECREA TION. 



287 



After three days of hard tramping, he 

 returned to the cabin well nigh ex- 

 hausted. He said the wolverine, after 

 dragging the trap and clog some 15 

 miles, had made a bed by digging a hole 

 a foot deep under some large spruce 

 trees. He had evidently spent the first 

 day chewing the stick loose from the 

 trap. He left his card, with compli- 

 ments, and the stick chewed into splin- 

 ters, for McLaughlin, who camped under 

 the same spruce tree his first night out. 

 After another day and a half of ardent 

 pursuit, McLaughlin was compelled, 

 from weariness, to give up the chase 

 and leave the wolverine with his No. 4 

 trap, to work out his own peculiar 

 destiny. 



" I have lived in the woods for twenty 

 years," said McLaughlin, *' all the way 

 from Maine to Puget Sound, and I had 

 always supposed I could, when I had 

 my own time for it, run down any thing 

 that made tracks in the snow. If this 

 rascally glutton had left the trap some- 

 where on the route, I shouldn't have 

 felt so badly beaten. The broad trail 

 made by the trap and chain spurred me 

 on. I kept thinking I would soon come 

 up with the beast. I have no idea how 

 far I walked after that brute, but I do 

 know that I followed him, in a fast walk, 

 from 5 a. m. to 6 p. m. the second day 

 out. The trail seemed fresh enough, 

 but I could not get a glimpse of the 

 beast. I kept thinking he would go to 

 some hole, but he kept clear of all such 

 dangers. If he had not been going 

 straight away from camp, I should have 

 followed him to the jumping off place." 



On another occasion, McLaughlin 

 followed a wolverine that had eaten 

 some poisoned meat, which had been 

 left in the woods for the wolves. After 

 going a mile the wolverine had thrown 

 up his supper, poison and all, appar- 

 ently, for McLaughlin followed his trail 

 enthusiastically a whole day, but saw 

 no farther signs of weakening on the 

 part of the wolverine. 



McLaughlin said he intended to take 

 a winter off, sometime, and follow a 

 wolverine. Maurice suggested that he 

 had better get more than one trap fast- 

 ened to each animal before starting 

 after it. 



It was here, at "Trappers' Cabin," 

 that the boys, as they called themselves 

 collectively, killed between 90 and 100 



deer within a quarter of a mile of the 

 cabin's door. Over half of them were 

 killed within gunshot of the house, and 

 many from the very door itself. 



One of the chief objects of this par- 

 ticular trip was to secure specimens of 

 caribou, or American reindeer, as they 

 are sometimes called. Caribou were re- 

 ported by the trappers as having been 

 rather common in the neighborhood of 

 their camp. However, they did not see 

 them before December, and killed their 

 first old bull December 15th. Their 

 tracks showed that they came in bands 

 of about a dozen each, from the north. 

 They remained until spring, and went 

 north again about the time the deer 

 began to return. A few days spent 

 hunting, within a radius of six miles of 

 the old camp, revealed nothing except 

 some old tracks and shed horns. I de- 

 cided to go north, to the high mountain 

 ranges, the supposed summer home of 

 the caribou. This route took us up to- 

 ward the head waters of Kettle river. 

 For nearly a week my companion and 

 I travelled with our pack horses. We 

 took turns at chopping trail, which led 

 us through some dense thickets. Some- 

 times these were composed of long, 

 slender trees, growing close together ; 

 at other places there were dead poles 

 and small green trees mixed. Further 

 on we met great stretches of down tim- 

 ber, not quite so large as telegraph 

 poles, but of great length and criss- 

 crossed beyond anything I had ever met 

 in many years of mountain travel. We 

 kept doing the " chopping act," as we 

 called it, most of the time for four days. 

 There was little sign of game in this 

 jungle. Occasionally, we would find a 

 small flock of " fool hen " grouse, and 

 would kill them with sticks. 



We travelled some 75 miles through a 

 country that bore no sign of ever hav- 

 ing been trespassed upon before, either 

 by white men or Indians. There were 

 no trails except game trails ; no blazed 

 trees, no old camp or axe marks, in 

 short, no anything to indicate that a 

 human being had ever before penetrated 

 the country. To me such a trip is al- 

 ways fascinating. The discovery of an 

 old camp, a bottle or tin can, or anything 

 to indicate that the country had been 

 previously penetrated, would have rob- 

 bed the expedition of much of its 

 charm. 



