Part 18 (2/2)

If the e, there will beexhausted his traps on the first, the trapper lies in wait at the second When theabout theand the ht If the trapper is an Eastern man, he ade in as they do in New Jersey; but if he is a type of the Western hunter, he lies on the log a a shot at every head that appears in theswims and dives for the quarry By the time the stupid little musk-rats have taken alar home, he empties and resets the traps

Thirty marten traps that yield six ive thirty musk-rats Add to that the twenty shot, and what does the day's work represent? Here are thirty skins of a coarse light reddish hair, such as lines the poor man's overcoat These will sell for frohly for 3 at the fur post Here are ten of the deeper brown shades, with long soft fur that lines a lady's cloak They are fine enough to pass for , or i 25 or 30 cents--say 250 in all But here are ten skins, deep, silky, alh prices, skins that will go to England, and fro with accelerating cost1 or more for each pelt The trapper will ask 30, 40, 50 cents for these,perhaps 350 in all Then this idle fellow's day has totaled up to 9, not a bad day's work, considering he did not go to the university for ten years to learn his craft, did not knoear and tear and drive meant as he worked, did not spend more than a few cents' worth of shot But for his et 9 in coin unless he lives very near the great furand food and tobacco whose first cost has been increased a hundredfold by shi+p rates and railroad rates, by keel-boat freight and pack-horse expenses and _portage_ charges past countless rapids But he will get all that he needs, all that he wants, all that his labour is worth, this ”lazy vagabond” who spends half his ti in the sun Of how many other hter a the little ht? Is this trapping not after all brutal butchery?

Anithe ainst water-worainst musk-rats It is the old question, should animal life be sacrificed to preserve hus for coats are more important life-savers than all the huether It is probable that the first thing the prehistoric man did to preserve his own life when he realized himself was to slay some destructive animal and appropriate its coat

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: _Amisk_, the Chippewyan, _umisk_, the Cree, with much the same sound A well-known trader told the writer that he considered the variation in Indian language , and that while he could speak only Ojibway he never had any difficulty in understanding and being understood by Cree, Chippewyan, and assiniboine For instance, rabbit, ”the little white chap,” is _wahboos_ on the Upper Ottaapus_ on the Saskatchewan, _wapauce_ on the MacKenzie]

II

_Sikak the Skunk_

Sikak the skunk it is who supplies the best imitations of sable But cleanse the fur never so well, on a da odour that betrays its real nature That odour is sikak's invincible defence against the white trapper The hunterfootprints that lead to a hole a before he has reached the nesting-place of his quarry coainst which white blood is powerless Or the trapper may find an unexpected visitor in one of the pens which he has dug for other animals--a little black creature the shape of a squirrel and the size of a cat hite stripings down his back and a bushy tail It is then a case of a quick deadly shot, or the man will be put to rout by an odour that will pollute the air for -field The cuttlefish is the only other creature that possesses as powerful means of defence of a similar nature, one drop of the inky fluid which it throws out to hide it fro acid As far as white trappers are concerned, sikak is only taken by the chance shots of idle days Yet the Indian hunts the skunk apparently utterly oblivious of the sainst the skunk; and a Cree will deliberately skin and stretch a pelt in an atmosphere that is blue hat is poison to the whitethe skunk was of three lish in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company and knew all the aniuide, a French-Canadian, and the third a Sandy, fresh ”frae oot the land o' heather” The ht by the noise of soh theinto their cabin and ru for a light and Sandy got hold of his gun

”Losh, mon, it's a wee bit beastie a' strip't black and white wi' a tail like a so'dier's cocade!”

That infor, ”Don't shoot it! Don't shoot it! Leave that thing alone, I tell you!”

But Sandy being a true son of Scotia with a Presbyterian love of argument wished to debate the question

”An' what for wu'd a leave it eating a' the oatin' th' eatables--I wull be pokin' it oot!--shoo!--shoo!”

At that the Frenchht and bolted for the door, followed by the English trader cursing between set teeth that before ”that blundering blockhead had argued thedid happen

Sandy cah the door with such precipitate haste that the top out at the top of his voice that the deil was after him for a' the sins that iver he had coer_

Badger, too, is one of the furs taken by the trapper on idle days East of St Paul and Winnipeg, the fur is comparatively unknown, or if known, so badly prepared that it is scarcely recognisable for badger This is probably owing to differences in cli soft fur, reseth of one's hand and as dark asas swan's-down, shading in colour frorayish white East of the Mississippi, there is toosoft fur Consequently specier seen in the Eastoverhairs or left to le on the first rainy day In New York, Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto--places where the finest furs should be on sale if anywhere--I have again and again asked for badger, only to be shown a dull matted short fawnish fur notthere is no de it In the North-West thethe winter is a frost mist that is more a snow than a rain, so there is little injury to furs fro, thick, and silky, almost as attractive as erer will ever grow in favour like musk-rat or 'coon, and play an important part in the returns of the fur exporters, is doubtful The world takes its fashi+ons from European capitals; and European capitals are too daer to be in fashi+on with them Certainly, with the private dealers of the North and West, badger is yearly becoer is prirounds of the anirounds of the trapper be Badgers runthemselves on the clay mounds, ready to bolt down to their subterranean burrows on the first approach of an eneh they both live in ground holes, nest their lairs with grasses, run all summer and sleep all winter, and alike prey on the creatures sopher, or ground squirrel, is ser than a Manx cat, with a shape that varies according to the exigencies of the situation Normally, he is a flattish, fawn-coloured beast, with a turtle-shaped body, little round head, and ser across the prairie and he stretches out in long, lithe shape, rese at every pace or two to snap at your horse, then off again at a hulking scra speed Pour water down his burrow to compel him to co the passage, so that his head, which is doard, is in dry air, while his hind quarters alone are in the water In captivity the badger is a business-like little body, with very sharp teeth, of which his keeper must beware, and some of the tricks of the skunk, but inclined, on the whole, to ularly every afternoon out of his lair he ees for the most comical sorts of athletic exercises Hour after hour he will trot diagonally--because that gives hi up on his hind legs as he reaches one corner, rubbing the back of his head, then down again and across to the other corner, where he repeats the perfor this, unless it was his habit in the wilds when he trotted about leaving duns on ht knohere to find him at stated times

Sunset is the tiopher burrows In vain the saucy jay shrieks out a warning to the gophers Of all the prairie creatures, they are the stupidest, the most beset with curiosity to knohat that jay's shriek ht, the gophers perch on their hind legs to wait developer's fur and the gopher mounds are alsters before the rest see hi down to the depths of the burrows That, too, is vain; for the badger begins ripping up the clay bank like a grisly, down--down--in pursuit, two, three, five feet, even twelve

Then is seen one of the most curious freaks in all the aniophers connect and lead up to different exits As the furious badger coophers, the little cowards lose heart, dart up the galleries to open doors, and try to escape through the grass of the prairie But no sooner is the badger hard at work than a gray form see to the rear all the while; and as the terrified gophers scurry here, scurry there, coyote's white teeth snap!--snap! He is here--there--everywhere--pouncing--juophers as cats catch et half a dozen poor cooped huddling prisoners; but the coyote up on the prairie has devoured a whole colony

Do these two, badger and coyote, consciously hunt together? Some old trappers vow they do--others just as vehemently that they don't The fact re on an unsettled prairie, there the coyote skulks reaping reward of all the badger's work The coincidence is no stranger than the well-known fact that sword-fish and thrasher--two different fish--always league together to attack the whale

One thing only can save the gopher colony, and that is the gun barrel across yon earth er

IV

_The 'coon_