at work in the slashing, immediately took to 
the water; but O-Go, still blinded by the flash¬ 
light, remained motionless for a full minute. 
If either of the two men, who crouched 
watching him, had wished to shoot him, O-Go 
would have been an easy target. However, they 
spared him, finally snapping off the light, and 
permitting him to make his way to the water, 
undisturbed except for his fears. This was 
through no feeling of mercy on their part; for 
one of them was an outlaw trapper, and the 
other a dealer in unlawfully-taken furs; and 
each was without a grain of pity in his being. 
O-Go was permitted to live for just one 
reason; it was not yet late enough in the year 
for beaver fur to have reached its prime. Hence, 
the two men were not at that moment seeking 
for pelts, but were merely spying out the land. 
They were travelling by night, examining all 
traces of beaver work in the great forest, in 
order that the dealer might decide whether it 
was worth while to grubstake the trapper for 
the coming winter. Thus it was, that the two 
men spent an entire night in walking the woods 
and wading the waters of Patou, flashing their 
lights here and there, until they had formed 
an accurate estimate of the number of beavers 
in the colony. 
112 
