"Where does the bait go?" inquired Hal. "Do you put it right on the trap or hang it over it?"
"Neither," laughed Pat. "We build a bait pen of brush or old logs, roofing it over, and set the trap just at the entrance in such a way that Mr. Bear must step in it in order to get into the pen or cubby where the bait is staked at the rear. Sometimes we lay a stick across the entrance close to the trap and six or eight inches from the ground so that the bear will try to step over it and in doing so he will be sure to put one foot in the trap. An old bear who has lost a toe or two in a trap and so has learned his lesson will sometimes tear the bait pen down from the rear and so get the bait. A deadfall is about the only way of catching one of that kind."
"I should think other animals would spring the trap," ventured Hal.
"They do sometimes, especially your friend Prickly Porky the porcupine," replied Pat. "But when we are after bear we try to set the trap so that nothing less than a bear will spring it. Show 'em the trick, Alec."
Good-naturedly Alec once more set the trap. Then he took a small springy stick and fastened it upright in a crack in the floor. Then he bent it over until the other end was hooked under the pan of the trap. The spring of it held the pan in place even when considerable weight was placed directly on the pan. "That would allow small animals to pass over it freely, ye see," he explained, "but the weight of a bar would spring it. We do the same thing with other traps, using smaller sticks according to what we are after."
At this point Pat went to investigate conditions outside. "Hi, you fellows!" he called. "Storm's over, and it's time to get busy and dig out. It's been raining, but it's clearing off cold, and by morning there'll be a crust that'll hold a horse. Walt, you and Hal know where the spring is, so you fellows make a path down to it. The rest of us will shovel out the wood-pile and the storehouse."
"What's the storehouse? There wasn't anything of that kind last fall." Hal was all eagerness.
"Just a bit of a log shack we put up to keep the meat and supplies in. You'll see it when you get outside. Now, everybody to wor-r-rk!" Pat flung the door open. A wall of snow faced them.
Alec produced a home-made wooden shovel and an old iron one. With these he and Pat soon cleared a space in front of the cabin. Then the others, armed with snow-shoes and an old slab, went to work with a will and soon Smugglers' Hollow rang with the laughter and shouts of the merry crew. It was not far to the spring, and the task of digging out and trampling down a path was not difficult. When they finished Walter and Hal turned for their first good look at the surroundings. It was a wilderness of white broken only by the thin column of smoke from the cabin chimney, and the figures of their comrades busy at the wood-pile and storehouse. The cabin itself was nearly buried in snow, which was more than half-way to the low eaves. It had drifted quite over the little shack where Pat and Alec were at work. All tracks had been obliterated and for a few minutes it was difficult for them to get their bearings, so changed was the landscape. Then one by one they picked out the landmarks they had learned to know so well in the fall, but which now were so changed as to be hardly recognized.
They stood in silence, something very like awe stealing over them as the grim beauty, combined with pitiless strength, of the majestic scene impressed itself upon them.