“Now Weewah carefully opened the loop of the noose until it was large enough for the head of any lynx to pass through, and fastened it deftly with twigs and blades of dead grass, so as to hold it in place firmly. From its front the thing looked like a miniature gallows—which, indeed, it was.
“Next Weewah took the rabbit from his pouch, and creeping under the thicket carefully so as not to disturb his looped string, he placed the still warm body an arm’s length behind the loop, propping the head of the little animal up with twigs, to look as lifelike as possible. In an hour, at most, the rabbit would freeze and stiffen, and would then look exactly like a live rabbit crouching in the bushes.
“Then the little Indian broke off branches, thrusting them into the snow about the rabbit, until he had formed a little bower facing the snare. Any animal attempting to seize it would thrust its own head right through the fatal hangman’s loop.
“When Weewah had finished this task he gathered up his tomahawk and bow and arrows, and started back along his own trail. He made no attempt to cover up the traces of his work, as he would if trapping a fox; for the lynx is a stupid creature, like all of his cousins of the cat family, and will blunder into a trap of almost any kind.
“The little Indian hurried along until he reached the point from which he had first crossed the lynx tracks. Here he turned sharply, starting a great circle, which would be about a mile in diameter. He did this to make sure that the lynx had not gone on farther than he thought. If he found no sign of fresh tracks he could feel certain that the animal was still close at hand.
“This took him several hours, and it was almost dark when he pulled back the flap and entered his home lodge in the village. He was tired, too, but his eyes shone with suppressed emotion.
“As soon as he entered his mother set before him a smoking bowl of broth without a word of comment or a question as to what his luck might have been in his rabbit hunting. His father was there, gorging himself on fat beaver meat that he had just brought in; but neither he, nor Weewah’s brothers and sisters, offered any comment at the little boy’s entrance.
“It is not correct etiquette, in Algonquin families, to ask the hunter what luck he has had until he has eaten. Even then a verbal question is not asked. But when the repast is finished the Indian woman takes a pouch of the hunter and turns its contents out upon the floor.
“The emptiness of Weewah’s pouch spoke for itself, for he had flung it upon the floor on entering, where it lay flat. His father scowled a little when he noticed it; for he wanted his son to be a credit to him as a hunter. But his scowl turned into a merry twinkle when he saw how radiant his son’s face was despite his ill luck, and what a small, delicately formed little fellow he was. Besides the old warrior was in an unusually good humor. Had he not killed a fat beaver that day? And was not beaver tail the choicest of all foods?
“In a few hours Weewah’s brothers and sisters, rolled in their warm Hudson Bay blankets, were breathing heavily, and his father and mother were far away in dreamland. Weewah was in dreamland, too; but not the land that comes with sleep. He was in the happy state of eager expectation that comes when to-morrow is to be a great day in one’s life. And so he lay, snugly wrapped in his blanket, his black eyes shining as he watched the embers of the fire in the center of the tepee slowly grow dim and smoulder away. Meanwhile the very thing he was dreaming about was happening out in the dark spruce swamp.