Part 21 (1/2)

In winter the ermine's murderous depredations arethe signs of the sno the ermine beco snow-fall catches a farouse out from furze cover The trapper, too, is abroad in the snow-storm; for that is the time when he can set his traps undetected The white whirl confuses the birds They run here, there, everywhere, circling about, burying themselves in the snow till the stor the rounds of these traps, along co a scent, head down, body close to ground, nose here, there, threading the rouse had run But stop, thinks the trapper, the snow-fall covered the trail Exactly--that is why the little er along with serpentine wavings of the white powdery surface till up it co it runs, still intent, quartering back where it loses the scent--along again till suddenly the head lifts--that motion of the snake before it strikes! The trapper looks Tail feathers, head feathers, stupid blinking eyes poke through the fluffy snow-drift And now the erer runs openly

There are too rouse; so it dives and if the rouse, erh the snoith a finishi+ng stab for each bird

By still hunt and open hunt, by nose and eye, relentless as doom, it follows its victioes the ermine, too, on the side away from the bird's head Does the mouse thread a hundred mazes and hide in a hole? The ermine threads every maze, marches into the hidden nest and takes murderous possession Does the rat hide under rock? Under the rock goes the ermine Should the trapper follow to see the outcome of the contest, the er its beady eyes at him If he attacks, down it bolts out of reach If he retires, out it co helpless creature with bold contempt

The keen scent, the keen eyes, the keen ears warn it of an ene coat conceals it The furze where it runs protects it from fox and lynx and wolverine Its size ad-places All that the ermine can do to hunt down a victim, it can do to hide from an enemy These qualities make it almost invincible to other beasts of the chase Two joints in the armour of its defence has the little er across snow betrays it to enemies in winter: the very intentness on prey, its excess of self-confidence, leads it into danger; for instance, little ermine is royally contemptuous of man's tracks If the man does not molest it, it will follow a scent and quarter and circle under his feet; so thethe little beast whose fur is second only to that of the silver fox So bold are the little creatures that the man may discover their burrows under brush, in rock, in sand holes, and take the whole litter before the game mother will attempt to escape Indeed, the plucky little ermine will follow the captor of her brood Steel rat traps, tiny deadfalls, frosted bits of iron sue which the frost will hold like a vice till the trapper comes, and, most common of all, twine snares such as entrap the rabbit, are the means by which the ermine comes to his appointed end at the hands of men

The quality of the pelt shows as wide variety as the skin of the fox; and for as mysterious reasons Why an ermine a year old should have a coat like sulphur and another of the sae a coat like swan's-down, neither trapper nor scientist has yet discovered The price of the perfect erher than any other of the rare furs taken in North Aer commands the fabulous prices that were certainly paid for speciland and the later Louis in France Hoere those fabulously costly skins prepared? Old trappers say no perfectly downy pelt is ever taken from an ermine, that the downy effect is produced by a trick of the trade--scraping the flesh side so deftly that all the coarse hairs will fall out, leaving only the soft under-fur

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 45: That is, as far as trappers yet know]

CHAPTER XIX

WHAT THE TRAPPER STANDS FOR

Waging ceaseless war against beaver and ainst wolf and wolverine, types of nature's ainst traders ere rivals and Indians ere hostiles, the trapper would almost seem to be himself a type of nature's arch-destroyer

Beautiful as a dream is the silent world of forest and prairie and mountain where the trapper moves with noiseless stealth of the most skilful of all the creatures that prey In that world, the crack of the trapper's rifle, the snap of the cruel steel jaws in his trap, seem the only harsh discords in the harmony of an existence that riots with a very fulness of life But such a world is only a dream The reality is cruel as death Of all the creatures that prey, e of animal life is drawn from three sources There are park speci capacity and penned off fro weaker than themselves There are the private pets fed equally well, pa har natural haunts, some two or three days' travel froeneration by generation froe repeaters

Judging from these sorts of wild animals, it certainly seened The bear cubs lick each other's paith an a between the purr of a cat and the grunt of a pig The old polars wrestle like boys out of school, flounder in grotesque gaood-naturedly dance on their hind legs, and even eat from their keeper's hand And all the deer fa one another with the affection of turtle-doves Surely the worst that can be said of these animals is that they shun the presence of s hadn't gone so badly out of gear in a certain historic garden long ago, whether mankind would not be on as friendly relations with the aniirls are with bears and baboons in the fairy books And the scientist goes a step further, and soberly asks whether these wild things of the woods are not kindred of man after all; for have not man and beast ascended the same scale of life? Across the centuries, ration

To be sure, members of the deer fae, and the innocent bear cubs fall totheir keeper, and the old bears have been known to eat their young These things are set down as freaks in the animal world, and in nowise allowed to upset the influences drawn fros, behind iron bars, or in haunts where long-range rifles have put the fear of man in the animal heart

Now the trapper studies animal life where there is neither a pen to keep the ani what it wants to do, nor any rifle but his own to teach wild creatures fear Knowing nothing of science and sentiment, he never clips facts to suit his theory On the truthfulness of his eyes depends his own life, so that he never blinks his eyes to disagreeable facts

Looking out on the life of the wilds clear-visioned as his mountain air, the trapper sees a world beautiful as a dream but cruel as death He sees a world where to be weak, to be stupid, to be dull, to be slow, to be simple, to be rash are the unpardonable cri, keen of eye and ear and instinct, sharp, wary, swift, wise, and cautious; where in a word the weak row fit to survive or--perish!+

The sloor bird Into the soft fur of the rabbit that has strayed too far frole The beaver that exposes hi lynx or wolverine or wolf on his home colony Bird preys on worm, mink on bird, lynx on mink, wolf on lynx, and bear on all creatures that live from men andBut the vision of ravening destruction does not lead the trapper to morbid conclusions on life as it leads so many housed thinkers in the walled cities; for the sahter shows hiest, has so, or dexterity or caution, soht, of semblance, of death--that will defend it from all enemies The ermine is one of the smallest of all hunters, but it can throw an ene under snow The rabbit is one of the s, but it can take cover froh to outwind the breath of a pursuer, and double back quick enough to send a harrying eagle flopping head over heels on the ground, and si it so truly that the passer-by can scarcely distinguish the balls of fawn fur fro eyes and ears are not given it for nothing

Poet and trapper alike see the same world, and for the same reason Both seek only to know the truth, to see the world as it is; and the world that they see is red in tooth and claw But neither grows morbid from his vision; for that sa destruction is only a weeding out of the unfit There is too ht in the trapper's world, too s, toobilious fumes across the mental vision of the housed city man

And what place in the scale of destruction does the trapper occupy?