"The Man has found us out," squeaked Umisk, despairingly.
"Too bad, too bad!" cried the King, with deep sympathy in his voice. "Anything happened--any one caught?"
"Nothing serious at present. One of the Babes lost a toe--mighty close shave."
"How did the Breed work it? The old game of breaking in your house--the Burglar?"
"No; that's too stupid for François. Muskegs! but he is clever. The thing must have been done last night. He cut a hole in the ice of my pond near the dam, then shoved a nice, beautiful piece of Poplar, with a steel Trap attached, down into the water--one end in the mud, you know, and the other up in the ice. Of course it froze solid there. First-Kit, that's my eldest Son, saw it in the morning, and, thinking one of our bread-sticks had got away, went down to bring it back. Mind you, I didn't know anything about this; he is an ambitious little Chap and wanted to do it all himself. Of course the Poplar was fast--he couldn't budge it; so climbed up to cut it off at the ice, with the result that he sprang the Trap and incidentally lost a toe."
"It's great schooling for the Children, though, isn't it?" remarked Black King, trying to put a good face on affairs.
"It's mighty hard on their toes," whined Beaver. "Hope it wasn't his nippers--forgot to look into that."
"Nothing like bringing them up to take care of themselves," declared Carcajou. "All the same, my Wood-chopper Friend, you just cut off that stick and float it, with the Trap, to one of your air-holes; I'll cache it for François."
"I was thinking of keeping it," added Umisk, "to teach the Youngsters what a Trap is like."
"Well, just as you wish; only I'll go and make a little trail from the spot off into the woods, so our busy Friend will think I've taken it. Hello, Nekik!" he continued, as Otter came sliding through the snow on his belly; "has François been visiting you too?"