“The great lynx, whose tracks Weewah had seen, started out just at dusk on his nightly rabbit and grouse hunt. He had spent the day curled up under the protecting boughs of a drooping spruce almost within sound of Weewah’s hatchet where the snare was being set. Now he took his way leisurely along his former trail, sniffing the air, and examining every likely looking nook that might hide the material for his supper. His great, fur-padded feet gave out no sound as he glided along over the now frozen crust, and he was the embodiment of stealth as he glided forward with ears erect, and stubby tail straight out.
“Suddenly he stopped, raised his head and distended his nostrils, drinking in the familiar odor wafted to him from some point near at hand. Then he dropped low, his long fur dragging noiselessly on the snow crust, as he wormed snake-like along toward a clump of low-hanging spruces. His keen, yellow eyes had caught sight of the crouching rabbit held in place at first by the twigs that Weewah had placed there, but now stiff and rigid as iron.
“Closer and closer crept the lynx, until he was within six feet of his victim. And still the rabbit did not move. The great body, quivering with suppressed energy, now slowly lowered itself and the hind legs were carefully drawn under for the spring. Then like a flash the gray body shot forward and with a snarl the dagger-like teeth closed upon the bunch of fur.
“At the same time the lynx felt a violent tug at his throat, and a heavy club dealt him a sharp blow across the back as it fell from overhead. In amazement the great brute dropped the rabbit, springing violently backward as he did so. But the leather thong about his neck and the club attached to it followed him in the spring, the noose tightening about his neck.
“With a scream of rage he pulled violently to free himself, bracing with his great fore feet against the club as he did so. But instead of freeing himself he felt a quick tightening of the noose at his throat. Frantic with rage and fright he continued to jerk and pull, sometimes changing his attack to viciously biting the stick. But the only effect produced was to gradually tighten the noose, which was now tangled with the thick throat hair, and did not relax.
“Time and again he returned furiously to the attack, bracing his feet against the stick, and pulling with all his strength. Inevitably he would have choked himself to death, as Weewah had planned he should, but for the fact that the little Indian had made the loop a little too long, so that the pulling produced a violent but not fatal choking. Many a lynx commits suicide in this way just as the trapper plans it.
“For hours the lynx wrestled vainly to free itself, varying the attacks on the club by trying to run away from it. But running away from it was quite as much out of the question as tearing it loose. For when the animal attempted to run the club was jerked about its limbs, tripping it, and frequently becoming entangled in brush and bushes. At last, exhausted, and thoroughly sulky, the great cat laboriously climbed a tree, and extended itself along one of the lower limbs, the club still dangling at one side from its neck. In all its struggles it had not gone more than two hundred yards from where the trap had been set.
“An hour before daylight the next morning, Weewah, who had been waiting for the first indications of morning, stole silently out of the tepee without awakening even the light-sleeping members of his family. He carried with him his own tomahawk, and his bow and arrow; but also he carried the heavy axe that his mother used for cutting the wood for the fire. She would miss it, he knew, and also he knew that he would be in for a solid whack from the first stick that lay handy when he returned; but he was willing to brave all this. The axe must be had at any cost.
“The sun was just pushing its blood red rim above the low hills in the east when he reached the edge of the spruce swamp. And it was still only an oval, fire red ball when the little Indian approached the place where he had set the snare the day before. He had swung along lightly and swiftly over the beginning of the trail, but now as he approached the goal his heart beat hard against his chest, just as any white boy’s would have done under the circumstances. But long before he actually reached the spot where the trap had been left he knew that he had been successful. Successful, at least, in having lured the prey into his snare.
“He could tell this by the condition of the snow, which had been dug up and thrown about by the wild struggle of the lynx. He loosened his tomahawk, therefore, held his arrow in readiness on the string, and approached the scene of turmoil.