CHAPTER X
LIFE ON THE FUR TRAILS
Supper out of the way the boys made themselves comfortable and gave Alec the word to take up his yarn.
"To begin with," said Alec, throwing a log on the fire, "when a trapper is thinking of going into new country he generally prospects it first, same as a prospector for gold, only he looks it over for signs of fur instead of for minerals. Sometimes he does this in summer or early fall, and sometimes he does it in winter, planning for the next winter. Friend o' mine went up into Brunswick last winter, and looked over some country which never has been trapped to amount to anything and this year he's up there with a line over one hundred miles long."
"Jerusalem! where did he stay nights when he was looking it over?" asked Hal.
"Wherever he happened to be," replied Alec.
"Didn't he have no tent nor nothin'?" Sparrer was round eyed with wonder.
Alec shook his head. "Nothin' but a week's supply of grub, his axe, rifle and blanket. That's all any good woodsman needs."
"But was it as cold as it is now?" asked Hal.
"Colder, because that part of Brunswick is consid'rable farther north. When night came he would just dig away the snow, build a fire and when the ground was het up move his fire back, lay some boughs down where the fire had been, make a little bough shelter over it, build a good big fire to reflect the heat, and turn in. Sometimes when there's a big rock handy or an upturned tree we warm up a place a little way in front of that and then move the fire over against it and turn in without any shelter at all. More'n once I've slept in just a hole in the snow. Tisn't so bad when you're used to it. Have to get up a few times in the night to put wood on the fire, but that ain't nothin', is it, Pat?"