Part 10 (2/2)

Here is the moose trail!

He dare not follow direct That would lead past her hiding-place and she would bolt He resorts to artifice; but, for that matter, so has the moose resorted to artifice The trapper, too, circles forward, cutting the er walks

He crouches, or creeps, or glides noiselessly from shelter to shelter, very much the way a cat advances on an unwary mouse He sinks to his knees and feels forward for snow-pads every pace Then he is on all-fours, still circling His detour has narrowed and narrowed till he knows she must be in that aspen thicket The brush is sparser She has chosen her resting-ground wisely The ling and watching till--he makes a horrible discovery That jay is perched on the topli buff-coloured behind the aspens ItThe untried hunter would fire

Not so the trapper Hap-hazard ai its agony off to inaccessible haunts The a of a hawk before the drop An ear blinks But at that instant the jay perks his head to one side with a curious look at this strange object on the ground In another second it will be off with a call and theswish of aspen leaves and snow and smoke! The jay is off with a noisy whistle And the trapper has leather forfor his snow-shoes, and et the fine filling for heel and toe; and this comes from caribou or deer The deer, he will still hunt as he has still hunted the moose, with this difference: that the deer runs in circles, ju the hunter to follow a cold scent, while it, by a sheer bound--five--eight--twenty feet off at a new angle,of dense woods No one but a barbarian would attempt to run down a caribou; for it can only be done by the sha while swi, and then--butchery

The caribou doesn't run It doesn't bound It floats away into space

One moment a sandy-coloured forlory of white statuary above its head, is seen against the far reaches of snow The next, the forainst its neck, till there is a vanishi+ng speck on the horizon The caribou has not been standing at all It has skiht; and if there is any clear ice across the lides beyond vision from very speed But, provided no man-smell crosses its course, the caribou is vulnerable in its habits Morning and evening, it co-place; and it returns to the saht If the trapper can conceal hi its trail, he easily obtains the fine filling for his snow-shoes

Moccasins must now be made

The trapper shears off the coarse hair with a sharp knife The hide is soaked; and a blunter blade tears away the re hairs till the skin is white and clean The flesh side is sirease it will absorb A process of beating follows till the hide is lie e and dry to a shapeless board The skin must be stretched and pulled till it will stretch noall moisture out; and the skin becomes as soft as doithout a crease The sives the dark yellow colour to the hide and prevents hardening The skin is now ready for the needle; and all odd bits are hoarded away

Equipped with ed ic fates to the forest world

CHAPTER XI

THE INDIAN TRAPPER

It is dahen the Indian trapper leaves his lodge

In midwinter of the Far North, dawn comes late Stars, which shi+ne with a hard, clear, crystal radiance only seen in northern skies, pale in the gray hthick to the touch like clouds of stea frolare

The Indian trapper must be far afield before a of betrayal in northernon the snow like a black marble, that the trapper detects the white hare; and a jet tail-tip streaking over the white wastes in dots and dashes tells him the little ermine, whose coat must line so over the drifts and diving below the snoith the forriggling of a snake under cover But the er and plainer on the snow than the hare's eye or the erray darkness of h noon

With long snow-shoes, that carry his out in that easy, aives never a jar to the runner, nor rests long enough for the snows to crunch beneath his tread

The old ot in trade frohtly in one hand A hunter's knife and short-handled wood in his loose, caribou capote Powder-horn and heavy antlets are attached to the cord about his neck; so without losing either he can fight bare-handed, free and in motion, at adown his back, is his _skipertogan_--a skin bag with aainst evil, rows hot, he throws back his hood, running bareheaded and loose about the chest

Each breath clouds to frost against his face till hair and brows and lashes are fringed with frozen er his face up with scarf and collar the more for this; but the Indian knows better Suddenly chilled breath would soak scarf and collar wet to his skin; and his face would be frozen before he could go five paces But with dry skin and quickened blood, he can defy the keenest cold; so he loosens his coat and runs the faster

As the light grows, die from the dark, wreathed and festooned in snow Cones and do larch boughs Evergreens are edged hite Naked trees stand like liainst the white glare The snow stretches away in a sea of billohite drifts that see and coasting and ski the ocean And against this endless stretch of drifts billowing away to a boundless circle, of which the man is the centre, his forer than a bird above the sea

When the sun rises, strange colour effects are caused by the frost haze