"No, Dame, she is not."
"Then he will get into trouble--that is certain. I have looked after you all--a big family, too, nine of you--and know what it means. Pisew, with his cannibal taste for Fox-cubs--and mark this, Son, even Carcajou has a weakness the same way, my Mother taught me to understand. And Rof, who seems such a big, gruff, kind-hearted fellow, would crack one of your backs with his great jaws quick enough in the Hunger-year, were no one looking. Mooswa is honest, but the others bear him no love, surely. And François is to set out the Traps to-day, and he has discovered our home here in this cut-bank, you say. Well, Son, thou art the King, because of thy Wisdom; but together we must advise against this Slayer, who has the cunning of Carcajou and the Man-knowledge of Wiesahkechack."
"What shall we do, Dame?"
"Now, thy red Brother, Speed, must take the message to the strong runners of our Comrades, Mooswa and the others, as has been arranged, to meet; and when François has passed with the Traps, go you five after this Man, and gain knowledge of where they are placed, and do all things necessary for safety in the Boundaries. The Watcher over Animals has sent soft snow last night, the first of this Cold-time, so your task will be easy. Just the length of a brisk run, higher up the Pelican, is a cut-bank with a hole as good as this. Before you were born, with your beautiful silver coat, I lived there.
"Now, François, even as he told the Man-Cub, will trap here, and who knows but he may put his Fire-medicine with its poison breath in the door of our Burrow, and seek to drive us out to be killed."
"That is true, Most Wise Mother; the sight of the twisting red-poison is more dreadful than anything; for it smothers and eats up, and is swift as the wind, and spreads like the flood in the river, and fears neither Man nor Beast, and obeys not even the Spirit God of the Animals when it is angered."
"Well, Son, while you follow the trail of this evil Trapper, I, with all your Brothers, will go to the other Burrow."
"Be sure the Cubs step all in one track, Mother--your track, so this Breed Man, with his sharp eyes, shall not suspect."
"Do you hear, Cubs?" asked the Widow. "Remember what your Brother has said. Also each day one of us will make a fresh trail here, so that the Man may think we still live in this house."
So while Speed glided swiftly through the Boundaries uttering his whimper call to Mooswa, Muskwa, Rof, and Carcajou, François and Rod shouldered each a bag of Traps and started to lay out the Marten Road, as was called a big circle of Traps extending perhaps thirty miles, for the Winter's hunt.