That day Jacques Le Beau—whom the Indians called "Muchet-ta-aao" (the One with an Evil Heart)—went over his trapline and rebuilt his snow-smothered "houses" and re-set his traps.
It was in the afternoon that Miki, who was hunting, struck his trail in a swamp several miles from the windfall. No longer was his soul stirred by the wild yearning for a master. He sniffed, suspiciously, of Le Beau's snowshoe tracks and the crest along his spine trembled as he caught the wind, and listened. He followed cautiously, and a hundred yards farther on came to one of Le Beau's KEKEKS or trap-shelters. Here too, there was meat—fixed on a peg. Miki reached in. From under his fore-paw came a vicious snap and the steel jaws of a trap flung sticks and snow into his face. He snarled, and for a few moments he waited, with his eyes on the trap. Then he stretched himself until he reached the meat, without advancing his feet. Thus he had discovered the hidden menace of the steel jaws, and instinct told him how to evade them.
For another third of a mile he followed Le Beau's tracks. He sensed the presence of a new and thrilling danger, and yet he did not turn off the trail. An impulse which he was powerless to resist drew him on. He came to a second trap, and this time he robbed the bait-peg without springing the thing which he knew was concealed close under it. His long fangs clicked as he went on. He was eager for a glimpse of the man-beast. But he did not hurry. A third, a fourth, and a fifth trap he robbed of their meat.
Then, as the day ended, he swung westward and covered quickly the five miles between the swamp and his windfall.
Half an hour later Le Beau came back over the line. He saw the first empty KEKEK, and the tracks in the snow.
"TONNERRE!—a wolf!" he exclaimed. "And in broad day!"
Then a slow look of amazement crept into his face, and he fell upon his knees in the snow and examined the tracks.
"NON!" he gasped. "It is a dog! A devil of a wild dog—robbing my traps!"
He rose to his feet, cursing. From the pocket of his coat he drew a small tin box, and from this box he took a round ball of fat. In the heart of the fat was a strychnine capsule. It was a poison-bait, to be set for wolves and foxes.
Le Beau chuckled exultantly as he stuck the deadly lure on the end of the bait-peg.