CHAPTER VIII
MIKE'S BEAR TRAP
WORK and play went quickly after the holidays and February soon arrived with the timber-men working harder than ever to get out all the logs possible before the thaw set in. Just as soon as the thaw sets in in the northern woods, the roads become almost impassable and ice starts to break up. The river overflows its banks and carries everything before it.
The river that was expected to flood and carry down the logs of the Manitoba Lumber Company generally drove them into a large lagoon where the saw-mills belonging to the company stood.
February was a short month, but the weather held good so that the men got out more timber that month than in January. The banks of the river were completely hidden under immense roll-ways of pine logs, so arranged that the moment the water rose the logs lying in the edge of the water would float out and that would gradually roll the entire mass of lumber into the water.
The first few days in March were very warm, and cracklings of ice could be heard distinctly through the woods. The men feared that work for the season was over, for, with the thaw, the work of hauling timber would have to cease. Still, they hoped that a period of cold would come on top of the thaw and that would just about permit them to finish the area of forest timber that had been mapped out in the Fall.
Mike had decided to abandon his trip to the North Woods for hunting and trapping, for he figured out that he could make more money by accepting the bosses' offer. This money was clear profit and he could put it in the bank at Winnipeg to await his old age when he could work no more.
But Mike set traps and did some hunting about the woods and kept the camp supplied with game and venison. He had one large trap set several miles from camp, but as yet had not caught anything in it.
The day before the warm spell set in, Mike sniffed the air and took note of various signs in the woods that told him a thaw was on the road. Consequently he knew that, if it was of a long enough period of time, many of the animals that sleep during the winter months would be tempted to come out and look about.
Finding nothing to eat, they would be led to seek farther afield, for they would be hungry after a long sleep.