If he woke up in the night and raised his head to find the fire burning low, he need not imagine every grotesque shadow in the dimly lighted cabin to be a fierce animal that had crept in while they slept.
When day came again they laid out their programme as usual. Of course, Uncle Jim, having started his season's work, could not neglect his traps. Every day when the weather allowed he must trudge the rounds and see what Fortune had sent him.
Besides, a humane trapper wishes to end as quickly as possible the torture of any creature that has been caught by the leg in one of his steel contraptions.
"It's a cruel enough business at the best," Jim Ruggles told the boys as he sat and spoke of his past experiences, "and often I've been sorry I ever took it up. But there must be trappers as long as women will demand rich furs in the winter season. My only satisfaction is that I've been kinder toward the little animals of the woods than most brutal trappers would be."
"But, however did you come to take up such a queer profession in the beginning, Uncle Jim?" asked Owen that morning, as they got to talking about the many years the old man had spent in this way.
Owen had discovered, before now that that Jim Ruggles was really a man of education, having been a college graduate.
He smiled at the question, did the old trapper.
"Oh, there were a lot of things combined to send me to the woods," he said, musingly. "First of all was my intense love for all the Big Outdoors. Seemed like I could never get enough of it. The more I saw of the forest, the more I felt drawn to it. I guess I had the woods hunger from boyhood. Max, here, knows what it is."
"I think I do," remarked the one mentioned. "I feel the craving come over me at times and have hard work to resist."
"Well, take my advice, son, and fight it off," remarked Trapper Jim. "Anyhow keep it in subjection. The world needs you. There's plenty of work for such as you in the busy marts of men. Don't allow yourself to ever dream of spending your whole life lost in the wilderness like I've done. What can I look back to but a life that's been wasted, so far as being useful to my fellowmen is concerned? A little run to the woods now and then to renew your vigor and draw in new strength—let that be all."