They awoke bright and early. Young Dan hopped from his bunk in a lively and limber manner, feeling nothing of yesterday’s exertions; but Andy Mace grunted a few times as he sat up in his blankets and a few more times as he lowered his feet to the floor.
“I ain’t as soupel as I was eighty years ago,” he said.
When Young Dan opened the door the cold fairly caught him by the nose. He made a quick trip across the little clearing and down the steep path to the landing-place, with two pails in his hands. He found the shallow Right Prong shelled in black ice from shore to shore save for a few little air-holes. He had to break the ice with a stone before he could fill his pails. Then he took a quick and splashy bath right there. Wow! Wow! But after it he felt as if he could eat his weight in bacon and pancakes and fight his weight in wild-cats.
They went out and examined the ground beneath the window after breakfast. Frosts and rains had done much to wipe out the tracks of the thief, but they found a few unmistakable claw-marks here and there. Mr. Mace put his white beard to the ground in the intensity of his scrutiny; but the best he could do was trace the marks for a distance of seven or eight paces from the window.
“I cal’late he’s denned himself up somewheres long before this, and lays sleepin’ snug as ye please on a bellyful o’ Bill Tangler’s superior prunes,” he said. “He’s a big feller, jedgin’ by the claws. I’d like fine to happen onto his den.”
“Same here,” replied Young Dan. “I’d sure like to have a look at him. A bear as smart as that one ought to be in a circus or teachin’ school.”
They cruised the woods from sunrise to sunset for the next three days, choosing the likeliest country for their lines of traps. They spent four more days in setting the traps exactly to Andy’s taste in four lines of about equal length radiating from the camp. By that time everything that wasn’t kept indoors or underground, or that wasn’t clothed in wool, fur, or feathers, was frozen stiff. The Right Prong was roofed strongly over, except in one spot where the swift water kept itself an open breathing-place in some mysterious way. The ice was strong to the very edge of that hole; and, to save himself the trouble of keeping another hole chopped clear, Young Dan always walked out to it for his morning and evening pails of water. There the little river flashed always bright and naked and untouched, sliding over mossy rocks as green as in summer.
There were other and lesser streams and half a dozen small ponds within the circle of Andy’s and Young Dan’s operations, and these were all frozen hard.
Andy arranged the routine of the everyday tasks. They breakfasted before sunrise, by lantern-light. Then Young Dan set out on one of the crooked six-mile strings of traps, outfitted with rifle, axe, and frozen bait, and a pocketful of sandwiches in case of need. Andy cleared away the breakfast things and fell to the ever-urgent task of rustling wood; and between bouts of chopping and splitting he prepared the dinner and sometimes even pulled off such extra stunts as a panful of ginger cookies or a pie. Young Dan was usually home, with or without a pelt or two, by half-past twelve or one o’clock. After dinner, Andy armed himself and lit out on another six-mile string, and Young Dan washed the dinner dishes and rustled wood. Andy was usually back, with luck, in time to cook supper. In the evening they gave the skins whatever attention was necessary and the old partner talked and the young one gave ear. In this way, each of the four lines of traps was visited every other day.
Snow descended upon that wilderness on the twentieth of November and continued to descend for two whole days and nights. It came to stay. Owing to the storm, the partners lost touch with their traps for two days. The third day was still and clear. The forest was fairly smothered, aloft and below. Young Dan set out at the first streak of daylight, sinking deep on his wide snowshoes at every step. He traveled slowly and experienced a good deal of difficulty in locating some of the traps. It was noon when he got to the end of the line, empty-handed. He rested there and ate half of his sandwiches of bread and cold bacon. He had tramped himself a nest in the snow, and made a little fire of dry twigs for the appearance of comfort; and now, having eaten, he continued to sit on his snowshoes and feed the fire. He was about to leave this retreat and set out on the back-trail when a muffled disturbance of the snow-heaped brush on his right attracted his attention. He glanced up in time to see a human figure issue from the tangle, its head held low and its shoulders hunched against the showers of dislodged snow.