Part 20 (2/2)

Is it at some period of the transition that the black fox becoray hairs as sheeny as the black and each gray hair delicately tipped with black? That question, too, remains unanswered; for certainly the black fox trapped when in his gray summer coat is not the splendid silver fox of priceless value Black fox turning to a dull gray of ray fox turning to the beautiful glossy black of midwinter? Is that what makes silver fox? Is silver fox siht at the very period when he is blooreatest beauty? The distinctive difference between gray fox and silver is that gray fox has gray hairs a hairs of other colour, while silver fox has silver hair tipped with glossiest black on a foundation of downy gray black

Even greater confusion surrounds the origin of cross and red and gray

Trappers find all these different cubs in one burrow; but as the cubs grow, those pronounced cross turn out to be red, or the red becomes cross; and what they beco only with the seasons[45] It takes many centuries to make one perfect rose

Is it the saular product of yearly cliht in the nick of time by some lucky trapper? Ask the scientist that question, and he theorizes

Ask the trapper, and he tells you if he could only catch enough silver foxes to study that question, he would quit trapping In all the norance and speculation, there is one anchored fact While aniray coats are not caused by age Young animals of the rarest furs--fox and erray while they are still in their first nest

To say that silver fox is costly solely because it is rare is sheerest nonsense It would be just as sensible to say that labradorite, which is rare, should be as costly as diamonds It is the intrinsic beauty of the fur, as of the diamonds, that constitutes its first value The facts that the taking of a silver fox is always pure luck, that the luck comes seldoues by snow-shoe and dog train over the white wastes of the North, that trappers in polar regions are exposed to ers and hardshi+ps than elsewhere and that the furdistance to h value of silver fox till it is not surprising that little pelts barely two feet long have sold for prices ranging from 500 to 5,000 For the trapper the way to the fortune of a silver fox is the same as the road to fortune for all other men--by the hoates bid trappers setting out for far Northern fields God-speed Long ago there would have been a firing of cannon when the Northern hunters left for their distant ca to-day and the hunters who go to the sub-Arctics and the Arctics no longer set out from Churchill on the bay, but from one of the little inland MacKenzie River posts If the fine powdery snow-drifts are glossed with the ice of unbroken sun-glare, the runners strap iron cra of the dog-bells, barking of the huskies, and yelling of the drivers, coast away for the leagueless levels of the desolate North Frozen river-beds are the only path followed, for the high cliffs--almost like ra east winds that heap barricades of snow in one place and at another sweep the ground so clear that the sleighs pull heavy as stone Does a husky fag? A flourish of whips and off the laggard sca pace with the others in the traces, a pace that is set for forty htfall when the sleighs are piled as a wind-break and the frozen fish are doled out to the ravenous dogs Gun signals herald the hunter's approach to a chance camp; and no matter how small and mean the tepee, the door is always open for whatever visitor, the ry travellers When the snow crust cuts the dogs'

feet, buckskin shoes are tied on the huskies; and when an occasional dog fags entirely, he is turned adrift from the traces to die Relentless as death is Northern cold; and wherever these long ruesome traditions are current of hunter and husky

I re of one old husky that fell hopelessly la the north trip Often the drivers are utter brutes to their dogs, speaking in curses which they say is the only language a husky can understand, emphasized with the blows of a club Too often, as well, the huskies are vicious curs ready to skulk or snap or bolt or fight, anything but work

But in this case the dog was an old reliable that kept the whole train in line, and the driver had such an affection for the veteran husky that when rheus the man had not the heart to shoot such a faithful servant The dog was turned loose fro teaht li du when the other teams set out, the old husky was powerless to follow But he could still whine and wag his tail He did both with all hisdriver looked back over his shoulder, he saw a pair of eyes pleading, a head with raised alert ears, shoulders straining to lift legs that refused to follow, and a bushy tail thwacking--thwacking--thwacking the snow!

”You ought to shoot him,” advised one driver

”You do it--you're a dead sure ai

But the other drivers were already coasting over the white wastes The owner looked at his sleighs as if wondering whether they would stand an additional burden Then probably reflecting that old age is not desirable for a suffering dog in a bitingly keen frost, he turned towards the husky with his hand in his belt Thwack--thent the tail as much as to say: ”Of course he wouldn't desert h all et up and juone husky in all polar land with half as good ato the dog he ran back to his sleigh, loaded his ar

Then he put one caribou-skin under the old dog, spread another over hiuzzling The fish had been poisoned to be thrown out to the wolves that so often pursue Northern dog trains

Once a party of hunters crossing the Northern Rockies ca train stark and stiff Where was the master who had bidden theh the white whirl of a blizzard for the lost path? In the middle of the last century, one of that fao north to Red River in Canada He never went back to Georgetown and he never reached Red River; but his coat was found fluttering fronal to attract the first passer-by, and the body of the lost trader was discovered not far off in the snow Unless it is the year of the rabbit pest and the rabbit ravagers are bold with hunger, the pursuing wolves seldo trains, licking up the stains of the bleeding feet, or hanging spectrally on the dier drives thee to attack I know of one case where the wolves followed the dog trains bringing out a trader's family from the North down the river-bed for nearly five hundred miles What man hunter would follow so far?

The farther north the fox hunter goes, the shorter grow the days, till at last the sun, which has rolled across the south in a wheel of fire, dwindles to a disk, the disk to a riht but not darkness The white of endless unbroken snow, the glint of icy particles filling the air, the starlight brilliant as diamond points, the Aurora Borealis in curtains and shafts and billows of tenuous iht so that the sun is union chiefly hunted by the Eskimo, with a fehite ular Northern hunters do not go as far as the Arctics, but choose their hunting-ground so the land where tiround is chosen always froe of the snow If there are claw-an or snow-bunting, erged stockings of feet feathers have a habit of floundering under the powdery snow; and up through that powdery snow darts the snaky neck of stoat, the white weasel-hunter of birds If there are the deep plunges of the white hare, lynx and fox and mink and marten and pekan will be plentiful; for the poor white hare feeds all the creatures of the Northern wastes, man and beast If there are little dainty tracks--oh, such dainty tracks that none but a high-stepping, clear-cut, clean-lihbred could make them!--tracks of four toes and a thu of five basal foot-bones behind the toes, tracks that show a fluff on the snow as of furred foot-soles, tracks that go in clean, neat, clear long leaps and bounds--the hunter knows that he has found the signs of the Northern fox

Here, then, he will ca different from the hastily pitched tent of the prairie The north wind blows biting, keen, unbroken in its sweep The hunter must camp where that ill not carry scent of his tent to the animal world For his own sake, he must camp under shelter from that wind, behind a cairn of stones, below a cliff, in a ravine Poles have been brought froh These are put up, criss-crossed at top, and over them is laid, not the canvas tent, but a tent of skins, caribou, wolf, le to let the snow slide off Then snow is banked deep, completely round the tent For fire, the Eskirease The white man or half-breed from the South hoards up chips and sticks But mainly he depends on exercise and ani In theis frozen stiff as boards by the moisture of his own breath Need one ask why the rarest furs, which can only be produced by the coldest of cli found the tracks of the fox, the hunter sets out his traps baited with fish or rabbit or a bird-head If the snow be powdery enough, and the trapper keen in wild lore, he may even knohat sort of a fox to expect In the depths of midwinter, the white Arctic fox has a wool fur to his feet like a brahma chicken This leaves its mark in the fluffy snow A ravenous fellow he always is, this white fox of the hungry North, bold frouish fro slightly s with shorter leaps by which the trapper may know the quarry; but the blue fox is just as hard to distinguish froray frost haze is al corowth Colour is blue fox's defence Consequently blue foxes show e than white--stubby ears frozen low, battle-worn teeth, dulled claws

The chances are that the trapper will see the black fox himself almost as soon as he sees his tracks; for the sheeny coat that is black fox's beauty betrays hiht out, every black hair bristling erect with life, the white tail-tip flaunting a defiance, head up, ears alert, fore feet cleaving the air with the swift ease of some airy bird--on he co like a wolf, altogether different fro in his beauty and his strength and his speed! There is noblack fox If the trapper does not see the black fox scurrying over the snow, the tell-tale characteristics of the footprints are the length and strength of the leaps Across these leaps the hunter leaves his traps Does he hope for a silver fox? Does every prospector expect to find gold nuggets? In the heyday of fur company prosperity, not half a dozen true silver foxes would be sent out in a year To-day I doubt if ood silver fox is sent out in half a dozen years But good white fox and black and blue are prizes enough in the as much to the trapper as mink or beaver or sable

II

_The White Ermine_

All that was said of the mystery of fox life applies equally to ermine

Why is the ermine of Wisconsin and Minnesota and Dakota a dirty little weasel noted for killing forty chickens in a night, wearing a any-coloured coat with a sulphur strip down his throat, while the ere, wearing a spotless coat which kings envy, yes, and take fro time the learned men who study animal life from museums held that the ermine's coat turned white from the same cause as hu effect of an intensely trying climate But the trappers told a different story They told of baby ermine born in Arctic burrows, in March, April, May, June, while the mother was still in white coat, babies born in an ashy coat so like a mouse-skin that turned to fleecy white within ten days They told of er his brown coat in auturay fur that turned sulphur white within a few days They told of the youngest and sest ermine with the softest and whitest coats That disposed of the senility theory All the trapper knows is that the whitest ermine is taken when the cold is most intense and most continuous, that just as the cold slackens the er to russet and brown, and that the whitest er senility, always displays the eous sort of deviltry

Summer or winter, the Northern trapper is constantly surrounded by erns of ermine There are the tiny claw-tracks almost like frost tracery across the snow There is the rifled nest of a poor grouse--eggs sucked, or chickens murdered, the nest fouled so that it e dead fro across the fields in the wildest, wobbliest,off that is clinging to his throat till over he tumbles--the prey of a hunter that is barely the size of rabbit's paw There is the water-rat flitting across the rocks in blind terror, regardless of the watching trapper, caring only to reach safety--water--water! Behind coht open chase--a little creature about the length of a , a body scarcely the thickness of two fingers, a mouth the size of a bird's beak, and claws as s neck straight up and its beady eyes fastened on the flying water-rat Splash--dive--into the water goes the rat!

Splash--dive--into the water goes the er up of the muddy bottole; and the ermine has not only dived in pursuit but headed the water-rat back from the safe retreat of his house Up comes a black nose to the surface of the water The rat is foolishly going to try a land race Up co neck like a snake's, the head erect, the beady eyes on the fleeing water-rat--then with a splash they race overland The water-ratthe rocks Ermine sees and with a spurt of speed is almost abreast when the rat at bay turns with a snap at his pursuer But quick as flash, the er neck strikes like a serpent's fangs and the sharp fore teeth have pierced the brain of the rat The victile, without a pain That long neck was not given the er Neither were thosecheeks