Part 20 (1/2)

Pekan do not yield a rare fur; but they are always at run where the trapper is hunting the rare furs, and for that reason are usually snared at the same time as mink and otter

IV

_Wapistan the Marten_

When Koot went blind on his way home from the rabbit-hunt, he had intended to set out for the pine woods Though blizzards still howl over the prairie, by March the war and all the woodland life awakens froh the forest ravenous with spring hunger Otter, too,to thaw But it is not any of these that the trapper seeks If they cross his path, good--they, too, will swell his account at the fur post It is another of the little chaps that he seeks, a little, long, low-set aniht on the deep dark overhairs, soft as down in the thick fawn underhairs, wapistan theof spring, wapistan stirs too, crawling out fro, restless with the sa his tricks on the hawk And yet the marten is not such a little viper as the mink

Wapistan will eat leaves and nuts and roots if he can get vegetable food, but failing these, that ravenous spring hunger of his oes fro ravagers That boldness gives the trapper his chance at the very time apistan's fur is best All winter the trapper may have taken marten; but the end of winter is the time apistan wanders freely from cover Thus the trapper's calendar would have months of musk-rat first, then beaver and mink and pekan and bear and fox and er idle oes to the fort for the year's provisions and gathers the lore of his craft

Wapistan is not hard to track Being s and sround and his tracks sink deep, clear, and sharp His feet are suishable fro footprint, theof the toe-balls The land animal of the same size has clear cut, narrower, heavierfoot-tracks thread the snow everywhere

Co, the trapper sends in his dog or prods with a stick Finding nothing, he baits a steel-trap with pos the decoy skin about to conceal his own tracks, and goes away in the hope that the uzzle on his prey and sleep

If the track is much frequented, or the forest over-run with marten tracks, the trapper builds deadfalls, h the forest in a circle whose circuit brings hi traps h all parts of the Rocky Mountain forests Thirty to forty traps are considered a day's work for one man, six or ten marten all that he expects to take in one round; but whena prize to-morrow

The Indian trapper would use still another kind of trap Where the tracks are plainly frequently used runways to watering-places or lair in hollow tree, the Indian digs a pit across the marten's trail On this he spreads brush in such roof fashi+on that though the ood climber, if once he falls in, it is alrouse or ”fool-hen” be thrust into the pit, the Indian is almost sure to find a prisoner This see; but the poor ”fool-hen,” hunted by all the creatures of the forest, never see out of the brush to stare at every living thing that passes If she did not fall a victiround To the steel-trap the hunter attaches a piece of log to entangle the prisoner's flight as he rushes through the underbush Once caught in the steel jaws, little wapistanthat co through the brush after her; for the sa that comes to the baby squirrels apistan cli, and live in the rifled house; for the sa his spring tune just outside his rocky den apistan, who has climbed up, pounces down from above Little death-dealer he has been all his life; and now death coreedyof a creature nobler than hi, even diving under snow The mink has craft to hide himself under leaves so that the sharpest eyes cannot detect him Both mink and otter furs have very little of that aniers to follow their trail What gift has wapistan, the ainst all the powers that prey? His strength and his wisdom lie in the little stubby feet These can cli had stumbled on a marten in a stu back with a ju to the death; and trappers' dogs grow cautious Before the dog gathered courage to etting the start of his ene hi under the thorny brush where his eneained, then into the pine woods where the trail ended on the snow Where had the fugitive gone? When theholes There were none Then he lifted so kept baying a special tree, a blasted trunk, bare as a ly i the trick by which creatures like the bob-cat can flatten their body into a resemblance of a tree trunk, the trapper searched carefully all round the bare trunk It was not till many months afterhen a wind storm had broken the tree that he discovered the upper part had been hollow Into this eerie nook the pursuedand man retired

In one of his traps the man finds a peculiarly short specimen of the marten In the vernacular of the craft this s can stretch Widely different from the mink's scarcely visible ears, this fellow's ears are sharply upright, keenly alert He is like a fox, where the s, julides like a snake Marten has the strong neck of an ani neck which reptiles need to give thes Mink's under lip has a mere rim of white or yellow Marten's breast is patched sulphur But this short marten with a tail shorter than other marten differs from his kind as to fur Both mink and marten fur are reddish brown; but this short reat thickness, and of three qualities: (1) There are the long dark overhairs the same as the ordinary marten, only darker, thicker, deeper; (2) there is the soft under fur of the ordinary marten, usually fawn, in this fellow deep brown; (3) there is the skin fur rese chicken-down, of which this little marten has such a wealth--to use a technical expression--you cannot find his scalp Without going into the old quarrel about species, when a marten has these peculiarities, he is known to the trapper as sable

Whether he is the American counterpart to the Russia sable is a disputed point Whether his superior qualities are owing to age, clih for the trapper to know that short, dark marten yields the trade--sable

CHAPTER XVIII

UNDER THE NORTH STAR--WHERE FOX AND ERMINE RUN

I

_Of Foxes, Many and Various--Red, Cross, Silver, Black, Prairie, Kit or Swift, Arctic, Blue, and Gray_

Wherever grouse and rabbit abound, there will foxes run and there will the hunter set steel-traps But however beautiful a fox-skin may be as a specis to one of three varieties--Arctic, black, and silver Other foxes--red, cross, prairie, swift, and gray--the trapper will take when they cross his path and sell theross at the fur post, as he used to barter buffalo-hides

But the hunter who traps the fox for its own sake, and not as an uncalculated extra to the o to the Far North, to the land of winter night and ht sun, to obtain the best fox-skins

It matters not to the trapper that the little kit fox or swift at run a the hills between the Missouri and Saskatchewan is the most shapely of all the fox kind, with as finely pointed a nose as a spitz dog, ears alert as a terrier's and a brush, ray feather boa than fur, curled round his dainty toes Little kit's fur is a grizzled gray shading to mottled fawn The hairs are coarse, horsey, indistinctly marked, and the fur is of small value to the trader; so dainty little swift, who looks as if nature hted by the hunter, unless kit persists in teray head and black ears and whitish throat and flaunting purplish tinges down his sides like a prince royal, may make a handsome mat; but as a fur he is of little worth His cousin with the black fore feet, the prairie fox, who is the largest and strongest and scientifically finest of all his kind, has more value as a fur The colour of the prairie fox shades rather to pale ochre and yellow that the nondescript grizzled gray that is of so little value as a fur Of the silver-gray fox little need be said He lives too far south--California and Texas and Mexico--to acquire either energy or gloss He is the one indolent member of the fox tribe, and his fur lacks the sheen that only winter cold can give The value of the cross fox depends on thediagonally over his shoulders in the shape of a cross, shade to grayish blue he is a prize, if to reddish russet, he is only a curiosity

The Arctic and black and silver foxes have the pelts that at their worst equal the other rare furs, at their best exceed the value of all other furs by so much that the lucky trapper who takes a silver fox has made his fortune These, then, are the foxes that the trapper seeks and these are to be found only on the white wastes of the polar zone

That brings up the question--what is a silver fox? Strange as it may seem, neither scientist nor hunter can answer that question Nor will study of all the park specimens in the world tell the secret, for the simple reason that only an Arctic climate can produce a silver fox; and parks are not established in the Arctics yet It is quite plain that the prairie fox is in a class by hith, his habits, his appearance, distinguish him from other foxes

It is quite plain that the little kit fox or swift is of a kind distinct from other foxes His smallness, the shape of his bones, the cast of his face, the trick of sitting rather than lying, that wonderful big bushy soft tail of which a peacock ht be vain--all differentiate him from other foxes The same may be said of the Arctic fox with a pelt that is more like white wool than hairs of fur He is much ser than the swift, and like all Arctic creatures, he has the soles of his feet heavily furred All this is plain and simple classification But how about Mr Blue Fox of the same size and habit as the white Arctic? Is he the Arctic fox in su? Yes, say some trappers; and they show their pelts of an Arctic fox taken in summer of a rusty white But no, vow other trappers--that is impossible, for here are blue fox-skins captured in the depths ofthem Look closely at the skins

The ears of one blue fox are long, perfect, unbitten by frost or foe--he was a young fellow; and he is blue Here is another with ears alhts and many winters' frosts--he is an old fellow; and he, too, is blue Well, then, the blue fox may sometimes be the white Arctic fox in summer dress; but the blue fox who is blue all the year round, varying only in the shades of blue with the seasons, is certainly not the white Arctic fox

The same difficulty besets distinction of silver fox from black The old scientists classified these as one and the same creature Trappers know better So do the later scientists who alree with the unlearned trapper's verdict--there are as many species as there are foxes Black fox is at its best in lossy, soft as floss, and yet almost impenetrable--the very type of perfection of its kind But with the coe The snows are barely melted in May when the sheen leaves the fur By June, the black hairs are streaked with gray; and the black fox is a gray fox