It was not long until he found tracks that he said were fox tracks, and in various places on the marsh set three traps, which were considerably larger than those set for marten or mink, and had two springs instead of one, and he used much greater care in setting them than in setting those for marten and mink. With his sheathknife he cut out a square of snow, and excavated in the snow a place large enough to accommodate the trap. Over the trap a thin crust of snow was placed, and so carefully fitted that its location was hardly discernible. In like manner the chain, which was attached to the root of a scrubby spruce tree, was also concealed. From a carefully wrapped package on his flatsled Skipper Zeb produced some ill-smelling meat, and this he scattered upon the snow over and around the trap.
"They likes meat that smells bad," he explained, "and I'm thinkin' that smells bad enough for un."
Evening was falling when suddenly through the forest there glinted the waters of a lake, and here on its shores Skipper Zeb told them they were to camp for the night. A home-made cotton tent, small but amply large enough for the three, was quickly pitched and a tent stove set up. Then while Toby and Charley gathered boughs and laid the bed, Skipper Zeb cut a supply of wood for the night, and before the boys had finished the bed he was frying in the pan a delicious supper of partridges, which he and Toby had shot during the afternoon.
Charley was sure he had never been so tired in his life. It had been a long day of steady walking, save for the brief stops when Skipper Zeb halted to set a trap, and the snow and turns at hauling the flatsled had made it the harder. He lay back upon his sleeping bag chatting with Toby and watching Skipper Zeb prepare supper. How cozy and luxurious the tent was! The pleasant fragrance of spruce and balsam would have put him to sleep at once, had it not been for the pleasanter fragrance of the frying partridges and a hunger that increased with every minute.
When the meal was eaten Charley's eyes were so heavy that it was little short of torture to keep them open, and he slipped into his sleeping bag, and in an instant had fallen into dreamless, restful sleep.
How long he had been sleeping he did not know, when suddenly he found himself awake and alert. Something had aroused him, and he sat up and listened. For a time he heard nothing, save the heavy breathing of Skipper Zeb and Toby, and he was about to lie down again when there came the sound of footsteps in the slightly crusted snow outside. Some animal was prowling cautiously about the tent sniffing at its side. The moon was shining, and suddenly he saw the shadowy outline, against the canvas, of a great beast that he knew to be a timber wolf.
He was about to reach over to Skipper Zeb to wake him, when all at once the stillness was broken by a terrifying, heartrending howl, rising and falling in mournful cadence, and echoing through the forest behind them. The howling creature was separated from Charley only by the thickness of the canvas, and Charley's blood ran cold.