Mooswa & Others of the Boundaries - William Alexander Fraser

This simple romance of a simple people, the furred dwellers of the Northern forests, came to me from time to time during the six seasons I spent on the Athabasca and Saskatchewan Rivers in the far North-West of Canada.

Long evenings have passed pleasantly, swiftly, as sitting over a smouldering camp-fire I have listened to famous Trappers as they spoke with enthusiastic vividness of the most fascinating life in the world,--the fur-winner's calling.

If the incidents and tales in this book fail of interest the fault is mine, for, coming from their lips, they pleased as did the song of the Minstrel in the heroic past.

Several of the little tales are absolutely true. Black Fox was trapped as here described, by a Half-breed, Johnnie Groat, who was with me for a season.

Carcajou has raided, not one, but many shacks through the chimney, as fifty Trappers in the North-West could be brought to testify. The trapping of this clever little animal by means of a hollow stump, all other schemes having failed, was an actual occurrence. It is a well known fact that many a Trapper has had to abandon his "marten road" and move to another locality when Carcajou has set up to drive him out.

Mooswa is still plentiful in the forests of the Athabasca, and is the embodiment of dignity among animals.

There is no living thing more characteristic of the Northern land than Whisky-Jack, the Jay. Wherever a traveller stops, on plain or in forest, and uncovers food, there will be one or two of these saucy, thieving birds. Where they nest, or how, is much of a mystery. I never met but one man who claimed to have found Jack's nest, and this man, a Trapper, was of rather an imaginative turn of mind.

The Rabbit of that land is really a hare, never burrowing, but living quite in the open. As told in the story they go on multiplying at a tremendous rate for six years; the seventh, a plague carries a great number of them off, and very few are seen for the next couple of years. The supply of fur depends almost entirely upon the rabbit--he is the food reserve for the other forest dwellers.

Blue Wolf is also an actuality. Once in a while one of the gray wolves grows larger than his fellows, and wears a rich blue-gray coat. I have one of these pelts in my house now--they are very rare, and are known to the Traders and Trappers as Blue Wolf.

Perhaps this story is too simple, too light, too prolific of natural history, too something or other--I don't know; I have but tried to tell the things that appeared very fascinating to me under the giant spruce and the white-barked poplars, with the dark-faced Indians and open-handed white Trappers sitting about a spirit-soothing camp-fire.

THE DWELLERS OF THE BOUNDARIES AND
THEIR NAMES IN THE CREE
INDIAN LANGUAGE

MOOSWA, the Moose. Protector of The Boy.

MUSKWA, the Bear.

BLACK FOX, King of the Boundaries.

THE RED WIDOW, Black Fox's Mother.

CROSS-STRIPES, Black Fox's Baby Brother.

ROF, the Blue Wolf. Leader of the Gray Wolf Pack.

CARCAJOU, the Wolverine. Lieutenant to Black King, and known as the "Devil of the Woods."

PISEW, the Lynx. Possessed of a cat-like treachery.

UMISK, the Beaver. Known for his honest industry.

WAPOOS, the Rabbit (really a Hare). The meat food for Man and Beast in the Boundaries.

WAPISTAN, the Marten. With fur like the Sable.

NEKIK, the Otter. An eater of Fish.

SAKWASEW, the Mink. Would sell his Mother for a Fish.

WUCHUSK, the Muskrat. A houseless vagabond who admired Umisk, the Beaver.

SIKAK, the Skunk. A chap to be avoided, and who broke up the party at Nekik's slide.

WENUSK, the Badger.

WUCHAK, the Fisher.

WHISKY-JACK, the Canada Jay. A sharp-tongued Gossip.

COUGAR, EAGLE, BUFFALO, ANT, and CARIBOU.

WIE-SAH-KE-CHACK. Legendary God of the Indians, who could change himself into an animal at will.

FRANÇOIS, French Half-breed Trapper.

NICHEMOUS, Half-breed hunter who tried to kill Muskwa.

TRAPPERS, HALF-BREEDS, and TRAIN DOGS.

ROD, The Boy. Son of Donald MacGregor, formerly Factor to Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Resolution.

When Rod was a little chap, Mooswa had been brought into Fort Resolution as a calf, his mother having been killed, and they became playmates. Then MacGregor was moved to Edmonton, and Rod was brought up in civilization until he was fourteen, when he got permission to go back to the Athabasca for a Winter's trapping with François, who was an old servant of the Factor's. This story is of that Winter. Mooswa had been turned loose in the forest by Factor MacGregor when leaving the Fort.

THE BOUNDARIES. The great Spruce forests and Muskeg lands lying between the Saskatchewan River, the Arctic Ocean, and the Rocky Mountains--being the home of the fur-bearing animals.

Mooswa

And Others of the Boundaries

CHOOSING THE KING

The short, hot Summer, with its long-drawn-out days full of coaxing sunshine, had ripened Nature's harvest of purple-belled pea-vine, and yellow-blossomed gaillardia, and tall straight-growing moose weed; had turned the heart-shaped leaves of the poplars into new sovereigns that fell with softened clink from the branches to earth, waiting for its brilliant mantle--a fairy mantle all splashed blood-red by crimson maple woven in a woof of tawny bunch-grass and lace-fronded fern.

Oh, but it was beautiful! that land of the Boundaries, where Black Fox was King; and which stretched from the Saskatchewan to where the Peace first bounded in splashing leaps from the boulder-lined foothills of the Rockies; all beautiful, spruce-forested, and muskeg-dotted--the soft muskegs knee deep under a moss carpet of silver and green.

The Saskatoons, big brother to the Huckleberry, were drying on the bush where they had ripened; the Raspberries had grown red in their time and gladdened the heart of Muskwa, the Bear; the Currants clustered like strings of black pearls in the cool beds of lazy streams, where pin-tailed Grouse, and Pheasant in big, red cravat, strutted and crouked in this glorious feeding-ground so like a miniature vineyard; the Cranberries nestled shyly in the moss; and the Wolf and Willow-berries gleamed like tiny white stars along the banks of the swift-running, emerald-green Saskatchewan and Athabasca. All this was in the heritage land of Black Fox, and Muskwa, and Mooswa.

It was at this time, in the full Autumn, that Whisky-Jack flew North and South, and East and West, and called to a meeting the Dwellers that were in the Boundaries. This was for the choosing of their King, a yearly observance, and for the settling of other matters.

When they had gathered, Black Fox greeted the Animals:--

"Good Year to you, Subjects, and much eating, each unto his own way of life!"

Whisky-Jack preened his mischievous head, ruffled his blue-gray feathers, broke into the harsh, cackling laugh of the Jay, and sneered, "Eating! always of eating; and never a more beautiful song to you, or--"

"Less thieving to you, eh, Mister Jay," growled Muskwa. "You who come by your eating easily have it not so heavily on your mind as we Toilers."

"Well, let me see," continued Black Fox, with reflective dignity, "here Ye have all assembled; for form's sake I will call your names."

From Mooswa to Wapoos each one of the Dwellers as his name was spoken stepped forward in the circle and saluted the King.

"Jack has been a faithful messenger," said Black King; "but where are Cougar, and Buffalo, and Eagle?"

"They had notice, thank you, Majesty, for your praise. Cougar says the mountain is his King, and that he wouldn't trust himself among a lot of Plain Dwellers."

"He's a Highway Robber and an Outlaw, anyway, so it doesn't matter," asserted Carcajou.

"You wouldn't talk that way if he were at your throat, my fat little Friend," lisped Whisky-Jack. "Buffalo is afraid of Man, and won't come; nearly all his brothers have been killed off, and he is hiding in the Spruce woods near Athabasca Lake."

"I saw a herd of them last Summer," declared Mooswa; "fine big fellows they have grown to be, too. Their hair is longer, and blacker, and curlier than it was when they were on the Plains. There's no more than fifty of them left alive in all the North woods; it's awful to think of how they were slaughtered. That's why I stick to the Timber Boundaries."

"Eagle won't come, Your Majesty, because Jay's chatter makes his head ache," declared Carcajou.

"Blame me," cried Whisky-Jack, "if anybody doesn't turn up at the meeting--say it's my fault; I don't mind."

"You know why we meet as usual?" queried Black Fox, placing his big white-tipped brush affectedly about his feet.

"That they do," piped Whisky-Jack; "it's because they're afraid of losing their hides. I'm not--nobody tries to rob me."

"Worthless Gabbler!" growled Muskwa.

"Jack is right," declared Black Fox; "if we do not help each other with the things we have learned, our warm coats will soon be on the shoulders of the White Men's Wives."

"Is that why the Men are always chasing us?" asked Beaver, turning his sharp-pointed head with the little bead eyes toward the King.

"Not in your case," snapped Whisky-Jack, "for they eat you, old Fat Tail. I heard the two White Men who camped on our river last Winter say that your Brother, whom they caught when they raided your little round lodge, tasted like beefsteak, whatever that is.--He, he! And François the Guide ate his tail and said it was equal to fat bacon."

"Unthinking Wretch!" cried Umisk angrily, bringing his broad tail down on a stone like the crack of a pistol.

"I picked his bones," taunted the Jay; "he was dead, and cooked too, so it didn't matter."

"Cannibal!" grunted Bear.

"They eat you also, Muskwa; only when they're very hungry though,--they say your flesh is like bad pork, strong and tough."

Black Fox interrupted the discord. "Comrades," he pleaded, "don't mind Jack; he's only a Jay, and you know what chatterers they are. He means well--does he not tell us when the Trappers are coming, and where the Traps are?"

"Yes, and steal the Bait so you won't get caught," added Jay. "Oh, I am good--I help you. You're a lot of crawling fools--all but the King. You can run, and fight, but you don't know things. That's because you don't associate with Man, and sit in his camp as I do."

"I've been in his camp," asserted Carcajou, picking up a small stone slyly to shy at Jack.

"Not when he was home," retorted the Jay; "you sneaked in to steal when he was away."

"Stop!" commanded the King, angrily. "Your chatter spoils everything, do stop!"

Whisky-Jack spread his feathers till he looked like a woollen ball, and subsided.

"This is the end of the year," continued Black Fox, "and the great question is, are you satisfied with the rule--is it good?"

Wolverine spoke: "I have been Lieutenant to the Black King for four years--I am satisfied. When our enemies, the Trappers, have tried to catch us by new wiles His Majesty has told us how to escape."

"Did he, always?" demanded the Bird. "Who knew of the little White Powder that François put in the Meat--the White Medicine Powder he had in a bottle? Neither you, Carcajou, nor Black King, nor any one tasted that--did you? Even now you do not know the name of it; but I can tell you--it's strychnine. Ha, ha! but that was funny. They put it out, and I, Whisky-Jack, whom you call a Tramp, told you. I, Jack the Gabbler, flew till my wings were tired warning you to beware."

"You might have saved yourself the trouble," retorted Wolverine; "Black King would have found it with his nose. Can he not tell even if any Man has touched the Meat that is always a Bait?"

"Stupid!" exclaimed Jack; "do you think the Men are such fools? They handle not the Bait which is put in the Traps--they know that all the brains you chaps have are in your noses. Catch François, the Half-breed, doing that; he's too clever. He cuts it with a long knife, and handles it with a stick. The little White Powder that is the essence of death is put in a hole in the Meat. I know; I've seen them at it. Haven't their Train-Dogs noses also--and didn't two of them that time eat the Bait, and die before they had travelled the length of a Rabbit-run. I saw them--they grew stiff and quiet, like the White Man who fell in the snow last Winter when he was lost. But I'm satisfied with Black Fox; and you can be his Lieutenant--I don't care."

"Yes," continued Carcajou, "who among us is more fitted to be King? Muskwa is strong, and big, and brave; but soon he will go into his house, and sleep until Spring. What would become of us with no King for months?"

"Yes, I'm sleepy," answered Bear--"and tired. I've tramped up and down the banks of the river eating white Buffalo-berries and red Cranberries until I'm weary. They are so small, and I am so big; it keeps me busy all day."

"You've got stout on it," chuckled Jack. "I wish I could get fat."

"You talk too much, and fret yourself to death over other people's business," growled Bear. "You're a meddling Tramp."

"Muskwa," said Mink, "there are bushels and bushels of big, juicy, Black Currants up in the Muskeg, near the creek I fish in--I wish I could eat them. Swimming, swimming all day after little frightened Fish, that are getting so cunning. Why, they hide under sticks, and get up in shallow water among the stones, so that I can hardly see them. It must be pleasant to sit up on your quarters, nice and dry, pull down the bushes and eat great, juicy Berries. I wish I lived on fruit."

"No you don't," snarled Jay; "you'd sell your Mother for a fish."

"If you're quite through wrangling," interrupted Wolverine, "I'll go on talking about the King. Who is better suited than Black Fox? Is it Mooswa? He would make a very magnificent-looking King. See his great horns. He would protect us--just now; but do you not know that in the Spring they will drop off, and our Comrade will be like a Man without hands all Summer. Why, even his own Wife won't look at him while he is in that condition. Then the young horns come out soft and pulpy, all covered with velvet, and until they get hard again are tender, and he's afraid to strike anything with them. You see, we must have somebody that is King all the year round. Why, Mooswa couldn't tell us about the Bait; he can't put his nose to the ground; he can't even eat grass, because of his short neck."

"I wish I could," sighed the Moose. "I get tired of the purple-headed Moose-weed, and the leaves and twigs. The young grass looks so sweet and fresh. But Carcajou is right; I was made this way--I don't know why, though."

"No, you weren't!" objected Whisky-Jack; "you're such a lordly chap when you get your horns in good order, and have gone around so much with that big nose stuck up in the air, that you've just got into that shape--He, he! I've seen Men like you. The Hudson's Bay Factor, at Slave Lake, is just your sort. Bah! I don't want you for a King."

The Bull Moose waved his tasselled beard back and forth angrily, and stamped a sharp, powerful fore-foot on the ground like a trip-hammer.

Black Fox interfered again. "Why do you make everybody angry, you silly Bird?" he said to the Jay. "Do you learn this bitter talk from listening to your Men friends while you are waiting for their scraps?"

"Perhaps so; I learn many things from them, and you learn from me. But go on, Bully Carcajou. Tell us all why we're not fit to be Kings. Perhaps Rof, there, would like to hear of his failings."

"I don't want to be King," growled Rof, the big Blue Wolf, surlily.

"No, your manners are against you," sneered Jack; "you'd do better as executioner."

"Well," commenced Carcajou, taking up the challenge, "to tell you the truth, we're all just a little afraid of Rof. We don't want a despotic Ruler if we can help it. I don't wish to hurt his feelings, but when Blue Wolf got hungry his subjects might suffer."

"I don't want him for King," piped Mink; "his jaws are too strong and his legs too long."

"Oh, I couldn't stay here," declared Blue Wolf, "and manage things for you fellows. Next month I'm going away down below Grand Rapids. My Brother has been hunting there with a Pack of twenty good fellows, and says the Rabbits are so thick that he's actually getting fat;" and Wolf licked his steel jaws with a hungry movement that made them all shudder. His big lolling tongue looked like a firebrand.

"You needn't fret," squeaked Jay; "we don't want you. We don't want a rowdy Ruler. I saw you fighting with the Train Dogs over at Wapiscaw last Winter. You're as disgraceful as any domestic cur."

"Now, Pisew--" began Carcajou.

As he mentioned the Lynx's name, a smile went round the meeting. Whisky-Jack took a fit of chuckling laughter, until he fell off his perch. This made him cranky in an instant. "Of all the silly Sneaks!" he exclaimed scornfully, as he fluttered up on a small Jack-pine, and stuck out his ruffled breast. "That Spear-eared Creature for King! Oh, my! Oh, my! that's too rich! He'd have you all catching Rabbits for him to eat. Kings are great gourmands, I know, but they don't eat Field Mice, and Frogs, and Snails, and trash of that sort--not raw, anyway."

Carcajou proceeded more gravely with his objection. "As I said before, this is purely a matter of business with us; and anything I say must not be taken as a personal affront."

"Of course not, of course not," interrupted Jack. "Go on with your candid observations, Hump-back."

"We all know our Friend's weakness for perfume," continued Wolverine.

"Do you call Castoreum a perfume?" questioned Whisky-Jack. "It's a vile, diabolical stink--that's what it is. Why, the Trappers won't keep it in their Shacks--it smells so bad; they bury it outside. Nobody but a gaunt, brainless creature, like the Cat there, would risk his neck for a whiff of that horrible-smelling stuff."

"Order!" commanded Black King; "you get so personal, Jack. You know that our Comrade, Beaver, furnishes the Castoreum, don't you?"

"Yes, I know; and he ought to be ashamed of it."

"It's not my fault," declared Umisk; "your friends, the cruel Trappers, don't get it from us till we're dead."

"Well, never mind about that," objected Carcajou. "We know, and the Trappers know, that Lynx is the easiest caught of all our fellows; if he were our King they'd snare him in a week--then we'd be without a Ruler. We must have some one that not only can take care of us, but of himself too."

"Pisew can't do that--he can't take care of his own family," twittered Jay. "His big furry feet make a trail in the snow like Panther's, and then when you come up to him, he's just a great starved Cat, with less brains than a Tadpole."

Carcajou suddenly reared on his hind quarters and let fly the stone with his short, strong, right arm at the Bird. "Evil Chatterer!" he exclaimed angrily, "you are always making mischief."

Jack hopped nimbly to one side, cocked his saucy silvered head downward, and piped: "Proceed with the meeting; the Prince of all Mischief-makers, Carcajou, the Devil of the Woods, lectures us on morality."

"Yes, let us proceed with the discussion," commanded Black Fox.

"Brothers," said the Moose, in a voice that was strangely plaintive, coming from such a big, deep throat, "I am satisfied with Black Fox for King; but if anything were to happen requiring us to choose another, one of almost equal wisdom, I should like to nominate Beaver. We know that when the world was destroyed by the great flood, and there was nothing but water, that Umisk took a little mud, made it into a ball with his handy tail, and the ball grew, and they built it up until it became dry land again. Wiesahkechack has told us all about that. I have travelled from the Athabasca across Peace River, and up to the foothills of the big mountains, to the head-waters of the Smoky, and have seen much of Brother Umisk's clever work, and careful, cautious way of life. I never heard any one say a word against his honesty."

"That's something," interrupted Jay; "that's more than can be said for many of us."

The big melancholy eyes of the Moose simply blinked solemnly, and he proceeded: "Brother Umisk has constructed dams across streams, and turned miles of forest into rich, moist Muskeg, where the loveliest long grasses grow--most delicious eating. These dams are like the great hard roads you have seen the White Men cut through our country to pull their stupid carts over; I can cross the softest Muskeg on one and my sharp hoofs hardly bury to the fetlock. Is that not work worthy of an Animal King? And he has more forethought, more care for the Winter, than any of us. Some of you have seen his stock of food."

"I have," eagerly interrupted Nekik, the Otter.

"And I," said Fisher.

"I too, Mooswa," cried Mink.

"I have seen it," quoth Muskrat; "it's just beautiful!"

"You tell them about Umisk's food supply, Brother Muskrat," commanded the Moose. "I can't dive under the water like you and see it ready stored, but I have observed the trees cut down by his chisel-teeth."

"You make me blush," remonstrated Beaver, modestly.

"Beautiful White Poplar trees," went on Mooswa; "and always cut so they fall just on the edge of the stream. Is that not clever for one of us? Man can't do it every time."

"Trowel Tail only cuts the leaning trees--that's why!" explained Whisky-Jack.

Mooswa was too haughty to notice the interruption, but continued his laudation of Beaver's cunning work.

"Then our Brother Umisk cuts the Poplar into pieces the length of my leg; and, while I think of it, I'd like to ask him why he leaves on the end of each stick a piece like the handle of a rolling-pin."

"What's a rolling-pin?" gasped Jay.

"Something the Cook throws at your head when you're trying to steal his dinner," interjected Carcajou.

Lynx laughed maliciously at this thrust. "Isn't Wolverine a witty chap?" he said, fawningly, to Blue Wolf.

"I know what that cunning little end is for," declared Muskrat; "I'll tell you what Beaver does with the sticks under water, and then you'll understand."

Black King yawned as though all this bored him. "He doesn't like to hear his rival praised," sneered Whisky-Jack; "it makes him sleepy."

"Well," continued Wuchusk, "Beaver floats the Poplar down to his pond, to a little place just up stream from his lodge, with a nice, soft bottom. There he dives swiftly with each piece, and the small round end you speak of, Mooswa, sticks in the mud, see? Oh, it is clever; I wish I could do it,--but I can't. I have to rummage around all Winter for my dinner. All the sticks stand there close together on end; the ice forms on top of the water, and nobody can see them. When Umisk wants his dinner, he swims up the pond, selects a nice, fat, juicy Poplar, pulls it out of the mud, floats it in the front door of his pretty, round-roofed lodge, strips off the rough covering, and eats the white, mealy inner-bark. It's delicious! No wonder Beaver is fat."

"I should think it would be indigestible," said Lynx. "But isn't Umisk kind to his family--dear little Chap!"

"Must be hard on the teeth," remarked Mink. "I find fishbones tough enough."

"Oh, it's just lovely!" sighed Beaver. "I like it."

"What do you do with the logs after you've eaten the crust?" asked Black King, pretending to be interested.

"Float them down against the dam," answered Beaver. "They come in handy for repairing breaks."

"What breaks the dam?" mumbled Blue Wolf, gruffly.

"I know," screamed Jay; "the Trappers. I saw François knock a hole in one last Winter. That's how he caught your cousins, Umisk, when they rushed to fix the break."

"How do you know when it's damaged, Beaver?" queried Mooswa. "Supposing it was done when you were asleep--you don't make your bed in the water, I suppose."

"No, we have a nice, dry shelf all around on the inside of the lodge, just above--we call it the second-story; but we keep our tails in the water always, so as soon as it commences to lower we feel it, you know."

"That is wise," gravely assented Mooswa. "Have I not said that Umisk is almost as clever as our King?"

"He may be," chirruped Jay; "but François never caught the Black King, and he catches many Beaver. Last winter he took out a Pack of their thick, brown coats, and I heard him say there were fifty pelts in it."

"That's just it," concurred Carcajou. "I admire Umisk as much as anybody. He's an honest, hard-working little chap, and looks after his family and relations better than any of us; but if there was any trouble on we couldn't consult him, for at the first crack of a Firestick, or bark of a Train Dog, he's down under the water, and either hidden away in his lodge, or in one of the many hiding-holes he has dug in the banks for just such emergencies. We must have some one who can get about and warn us all."

"I object to him because he's got Fleas," declared Jay, solemnly.

"Fleas!" a chorus of voices exclaimed in indignant protest.

The Coyote, who had been digging viciously at the back of his ear with a sharp-clawed foot, dropped his leg, got up, and stretched himself, with a yawn, hoping that nobody had observed his petulant scratching.

"That's silly!" declared Mooswa. "A chap that lives under the water have Fleas?"

"Is it?" piped Whisky-Jack. "What's his thick fur coat, with the strong, black guard-hairs for? Do you suppose that doesn't keep his hide dry? If one of you land-dwellers were out in a stiff shower you'd be wet to the skin; but he won't, though he stay under water a month. If he hasn't got Fleas, what is that double nail on his left hind-foot for?"

"Perhaps he hasn't got a split-nail," ventured Fisher--"I haven't."

"Nor I!" declared Mink.

"My nails are all single!" asserted Muskrat.

"Look for yourselves if you don't believe me," commanded Jack. "If he hasn't got it, I'll take back what I said, and you can make him King if you wish."

This made Black Fox nervous. "Will you show our Comrades your toes, please?" he commanded Beaver, with great politeness.

Umisk held up his foot deprecatingly. There sure enough, on the second toe, was a long, black, double claw, like a tiny pincers. "What did I tell you?" shrieked Jack. "He can pin a Flea with that as easily as Mink seizes a wriggling Trout. He's got half-a-dozen different kinds of Fleas, has Umisk. I won't have a King who is little better than a bug-nursery. A King must be above that sort of thing."

"This is all nonsense," exclaimed Carcajou angrily, for he had fleas himself; "it's got nothing to do with the matter. Umisk has to live under the ice nearly all Winter, and would be of no more service to us than Muskwa--that's the real objection."

"My!" cried Beaver, patting the ground irritably with his trowel-tail, "one really never knows just how vile he is till he gets running for office. Besides, I don't want to be King--I'm too busy. Perhaps sometime when I was here governing the Council, François, or another enemy, would break my dam and murder the whole family; besides, it's too dusty out here--I like the nice, clean water. My feet get sore walking on the land."

"Oh, he doesn't want to be King!" declared Jay, ironically. "Next! next! Who else is there, Frog-legged Carcajou?"

"Well, there's Muskrat," suggested Lynx; "I like him."

"Yes, to eat!" interrupted Whisky-Jack. "If Wuchusk were King, we'd come home some day and find that he'd been eaten by one of his own subjects--by the sneaking Lynx--'Slink' it should be."

"You shouldn't say that," declared Black Fox; "because you're our Mail Carrier you shouldn't take so many liberties."

"I'm only telling the truth. It has always been the custom at these meetings for each one to speak just what he thought, and no hard feelings afterward."

Carcajou pulled his long, curved claws through his whiskers reflectively. "What's the use of wrangling like this--we're as silly as a lot of Men. Last Winter when I was down at Grand Rapids I sat up on the roof of a Shack listening to those two-legged creatures squabbling. They were all arguing fiercely about the different ways of getting to Heaven. According to each one he was on the right road, and the rest were all wrong. Fresh Meat! but it was stupid; for I gathered from what they said that the one way to get there was to be good; only each had a different way."

"What place did you say?" queried the Jay.

"Grand Rapids."

"No, no! the place they all wanted to go to."

"Heaven."

"Where's that?"

"I don't know, and you needn't bother; for the Men said it was a place for the good, only."

Beaver's fat sides fairly shook as he chuckled delightedly over the snub Carcajou had given Jack.

"Ha, ha!" roared Bear; "Sweet Berries! but Humpback is too many for you, Birdie," and the woods echoed with his laughter.

"Rats!" screamed the Jay; "that's the subject under discussion. Our friend wanders from his theme trying to be personal."

"Oh, nobody's personal here," sighed Lynx. "I'm a 'Slink,' but that doesn't count."

"Yes, talking of Rats," recommenced Carcajou, "like Lynx, I admire our busy little Brother, Beaver, though I never ate one in my life--"

"Pisew did!" chirruped the bird-voice from over their heads.

"Though I never ate one," solemnly repeated Wolverine; "but if Umisk won't do for King, there is no use discussing Wuchusk's chances. He has all Trowel Tail's failings, without his great wisdom, and even can't build a decent house, though he lives in one. Half the time he hasn't anything to eat for his family; you'll see him skirmishing about Winter or Summer, eating Roots, or, like our friends Mink and Otter, chasing Fish. Anyway, I get tired of that horrible odour of musk always. His house smells as bad as a Trapper's Shack with piles of fur in it--I hate people who use musk, it shows bad taste; and to carry a little bag of it around with one all the time--it's detestable!"

"You should take a trip to the Barren Lands, my fastidious friend, as I did once," interposed Mooswa, "and get a whiff of the Musk Ox. Much Fodder! it turned my stomach."

"You took too much of it, old Blubbernose," yelled Jay, fiendishly; "Wolverine hasn't got a nose like the head of a Sturgeon Fish. Anyway, you're out of it, Mister Rat; if the Lieutenant says you're not fit for King, why you're not--I must say I'm glad of it."

"There are still the two cousins, Otter, and Mink," said Carcajou.

"Fish Thieves--both of them," declared Whisky-Jack. "So is Fisher, only he hasn't nerve to go in the water after Fish; he waits till Man catches and dries them, then robs the cache. That's why they call him Fisher--they should name him Fish-stealer."

"Look here, Jack," retorted Wolverine, "last Winter I heard François say that you stole even his soap."

"I thought it was butter," chuckled Jay--"it made me horribly sick. But their butter was so bad, I thought the soap was an extra good pat of it."

"I may say," continued Carcajou, "that these two cousins, Otter and Mink, like Muskrat, have too limited a knowledge for either to be Chief of the Boundaries. While they know all about streams and water powers, they'd be lost on land. Why, in deep snow, Nekik with his short, little legs makes a track as though somebody had pulled a log along--that wouldn't do."

"I don't want to be King!" declared Otter.

"Nor I!" added Mink.

"And we don't want you--so that settles it; all agreed!" cried Whisky-Jack, gleefully. "Nothing like having peace and harmony in the meeting. It always comes to the same thing: people's names are put up, they're blackguarded and abused, and in the end nobody's fit for the billet but Black Fox; and Carcajou, of course, is his Lieutenant."

"We have now considered everybody's claims," began Carcajou--

"You've modestly forgotten yourself," interrupted Whisky-Jack. "You'd make a fine, fat, portly Ruler."

"No, I withdraw in favour of Black Fox, and we won't even mention your name. Black Fox has been a good King; he has saved many of us from a Trap; besides, he wears the Royal Robe. Look at him! his Mother and all his Brothers and Sisters are red, except Stripes, the Baby, who is a Cross; does that not show that he has been selected for royal honours? Among ourselves each one is like his Brother--there is little difference. The Minks are alike, the Otter are alike, the Wolves are alike--all are alike; except, of course, that one may be a little larger or a little darker than the other. Look at the King's magnificent Robe--blacker than Fisher's coat; and the silver tip of the white guard-hairs make it more beautiful than any of our jackets."

"It's just lovely!" purred Pisew, with a fine sycophantic touch.

"I'm glad I haven't a coat like that," sang out Jay; "His Majesty will be assassinated some day for it. Do you fellows know what he's worth to the Trappers--do any of you know your market value? I thought not--let me tell you."

"For the sake of a mild Winter, don't--not just now," pleaded Carcajou. "Let us settle this business of the King first, then you can all spin yarns."

"Yes, we're wasting time," declared Umisk. "I've got work to do on my house, so let us select a Chief, by all means. There's Coyote, and Wapoos, and Sikak the Skunk, who have not yet been mentioned." But each of these, dreading Jack's sharp tongue, hastily asserted they were not in the campaign as candidates.

"Well, then," asked Carcajou, "are you all agreed to have Black Fox as Leader until the fulness of another year?"

"I'm satisfied!" said Bear, gruffly.

"It's an honour to have him," ventured Pisew the Lynx.

"He's a good enough King," declared Nekik the Otter.

"I'm agreed!" exclaimed Beaver; "I want to get home to my work."

"Long live the King!" barked Blue Wolf.

"Long live the King!" repeated Mink, and Fisher, and the rest of them in chorus.

"Now that's settled," announced Wolverine.

"Thank you, Comrades," said Black Fox; "you honour me. I will try to be just, and look after you carefully. May I have Wolverine as Lieutenant again?"

They all agreed to this.

THE VALUE OF THEIR FUR

"Now that's serious business enough for one day," declared the King; "Jack, you may tell us about the fur, and perhaps some of the others also have interesting tales to relate."

Whisky-Jack hopped down from his perch, and strutted proudly about in the circle.

"Mink," he began, snapping his beak to clear his throat, "you can chase a silly, addle-headed Fish into the mud and eat him, but you don't know the price of your own coat. Listen! The Black King's jacket is worth more than your fur and all the others put together. I heard the Factor at Wapiscaw tell his clerk about it last Winter when I dined with him."

"You mean when you dined with the Train Dogs," sneered Pisew.

"You'll dine with them some day, and their stomachs will be fuller than yours," retorted the Bird. "Mink, your pelt is worth a dollar and a half--'three skins,' as the Company Men say when they are trading with the Indians, for a skin means fifty cents. You wood-dwellers didn't know that, I suppose."

"What do they sell my coat for?" queried Beaver.

"Six dollars--twelve skins, for a prime, dark one. Kit-Beaver, that's one of your Babies, old Trowel Tail, sells for fifty cents--or is given away. You, Fisher, and you, Otter, are nip and tuck--eight or ten dollars, according to whether your fur is black or of a dirty coffee colour. But there's Pisew; he's got a hide as big as a blanket, and it sells for only two dollars. Do you know what they do with your skin, Slink? They line long cloaks for the White Wives with it; because it's soft and warm,--also cheap and nasty. He, he! old Feather-bed Fur.

"Now, Wapistan, the Marten, they call a little gentleman. It's wonderful how he has grown in their affections, though. Why, I remember, five years ago the Company was paying only three skins for prime Marten; and what do you suppose your hide sells for now, wee Brother?"

"Please don't," pleaded Marten, "it's a painful subject; I wish they couldn't sell it at all. I'm almost afraid to touch anything to eat--there's sure to be a Trap underneath. The other day I saw a nice, fat White Fish head, and thought Mink had left a bite for me; but when I reached for it, bang! went a pair of steel jaws, scraping my very nose. Fat Fish! it was a close shave--I'm trembling yet; the jagged teeth looked so viciously cruel. If my leg had got in them I know what I should have had to do."

"So do I," asserted Jack.

"What would he have done, Babbler--you who know all things?" asked Lynx.

"Died!" solemnly croaked Jay.

"I should have had to cut off my leg, as a cousin of mine did," declared Wapistan. "He's still alive, but we all help him get a living now. I wish my skin was as cheap as Muskrat's."

"Oh, bless us! he's only worth fifteen cents," remonstrated Jack. "His wool is but used for lining--put on the inside of Men's big coats where it won't show. But your fur, dear Pussy Marten, is worth eight dollars; think of that! Of course that's for a prime pelt. That Brother of yours, sitting over there with the faded yellow jacket, wouldn't fetch more than three or four at the outside; but I'll give you seven for yours now, and chance it--shouldn't wonder if you'd fetch twelve when they skin you, for your coat is nice and black."

"I suppose there's no price on your hide," whined Lynx; "it's nice to be of no value in the world--isn't it?"

"There's always a price on brains; but that doesn't interest you, Silly, does it? You're not in the market. Your understanding runs to a fine discrimination in perfumes--prominent odours, like Castoreum, or dead Fish. If you were a Man you'd have been a hair-dresser.

"Muskwa, your pelt's a useful one; still it doesn't sell for a very great figure. Last year at Wapiscaw I saw pictures on the Factor's walls of men they call Soldiers, and they had the queerest, great, tall head-covers, made from the skins of cousins of yours. And the Factor also had a Bear pelt on the floor, which he said was a good one, worth twenty dollars--that's your value dead, twenty dollars.

"Mooswa's shaggy shirt is good; but they scrape the hair off and make moccasins of the leather. Think of that, Weed-eater; perhaps next year the Trappers will be walking around in your hide, killing your Brother, or your Daddy, or some other big-nosed, spindle-legged member of your family. The homeliest man in the whole Chippewa tribe they have named 'The Moose,' and he's the ugliest creature I ever saw; you'd be ashamed of him--he's even ashamed of himself."

"What's the hide worth?" asked Carcajou.

"Seven dollars the Factor pays in trade, which is another name for robbery; but I think it's dear at that price, with no hair on, for it is tanned, of course--the Squaws make the skin into leather. You wouldn't believe, though, that they'd ever be able to skin Bushy-tail, would you?"

"What! the Skunk?" cried Lynx. "Haven't the Men any noses?"

"Not like yours, Slink; but they take his pelt right enough; and the white stripes down his back that he's so proud of are dyed, and these Men, who are full of lies, sell it as some kind of Sable. And Marten, too, they sell him as Sable--Canadian Sable."

"I'm sure we are all enjoying this," suggested Black King, sarcastically.

"Yes, Brothers," assented Whisky-Jack, "Black Fox's silver hide is worth more than all the rest put together. Sometimes it fetches Five Hundred Dollars!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Otter, enviously; "is that true, Jack?"

"It is, Bandy-legs--I always speak the truth; but it is only a fad. A tribe of Men called Russians buy Silver Fox; it is said they have a lot of money, but, like Pisew, little brains. For my part, I'd rather have feathers; they don't rub off, and are nicer in every way. Do you know who likes your coat, Carcajou?"

"The Russians!" piped Mink, like a little school-boy.

"Stupid Fish-eater! Bigger fools than the Russians buy Wolverine--the Eskimo, who live away down at the mouth of the big river that runs to the icebergs."

"What are icebergs, Brother?" asked Mink.

"Pieces of ice," answered Jack. "Now you know everything, go and catch a Goldeye for your supper."

"Goldeye don't come up the creeks, you ignorant Bird," retorted Sakwasew. "I wish they did, though; one can see their big, yellow eyes so far in the water--they're easily caught."

"Suckers are more useful," chimed in Fisher; "when they crowd the river banks in Autumn, eating those black water-bugs, I get fat, and hardly wet a foot; I hate the water, but I do like a plump, juicy Sucker."

"Not to be compared to a Goldeye or Doré," objected Mink; "they're too soft and flabby."

"Fish, Fish, Fish! always about Fish, or something to eat, with you Water-Rats," interrupted Carcajou, disgustedly. "Do let us get back to the subject. Do you know what the Men say of our Black King, Comrades?"

"They call him The Devil!" declared Jay.

"No they don't," objected Carcajou; "they aver he's Wiesahkechack, the great Indian God, who could change himself into Animals--that's what they think. You all know François, the French Half-breed, who trapped at Hay River last Winter."

"He killed my First Cousin," sighed Marten.

"I lost a Son by him--poisoned," moaned Black King's Mother, the Red Widow, who had been sitting quietly during the meeting watching with maternal pride the form of her son.

"Yes, he tried to catch me," boasted Carcajou, "but I outwitted him, and threw a Number Four Steel Trap in the river. He had a fight with a Chippewa Indian over it--blamed him for the theft. Oh, I enjoyed that. I was hidden under a Spruce log, and watched François pummel the Indian until he ran away. I don't understand much French, but the Half-breed used awful language. I wish they'd always fight amongst themselves."

"Why didn't the Chippewa squeeze François till he was dead?--that's what I should have done," growled Muskwa. "Do you remember Nichemous, the Cree Half-breed, who always keeps his hat tied on with a handkerchief?"

"I saw him once," declared Black Fox.

"Well, he tried to shoot me--crept up close to a log I was lying behind, and poked his Ironstick over it, thinking I was asleep. That was in the Winter--I think it was the Second of February: but do you know, sometimes I get my dates mixed. One year I forgot in my sleep, and came out on the First to see what the weather was like. Ha, ha! fancy that; coming out on the First and thought it was the Second."

"What has that got to do with Nichemous, old Garrulity?" squeaked Whisky-Jack.

Muskwa licked his gray nose apologetically for having wandered from the subject. "Well, as I have said, it was the Second of February; I had been lying up all Winter in a tremendously snug nest in a little coulee that runs off Pembina River. Hunger! but I was weak when I came out that day."

"I should think you would have been," sympathized the Bird, mockingly.

"I had pains, too; the hard Red-willow Berries that I always eat before I lay up were griping me horribly--they always do that--they're my medicine, you know."

"Muskwa is getting old," interrupted Jay. "He's garrulous--it's his pains and aches now."

Bear took no notice of the Bird. "I was tired and cross; the sun was nice and warm, and I lay down behind a log to rest a little. Suddenly there was a sound of the crisp hide of the snow cracking, and at first I thought it was something to eat coming,--something for my hunger. I looked cautiously over the tree, and there was Nichemous trailing me; his snow-shoe had cut through the crust; but it was too late to run, for that Ironstick of his would have reached; so I lay still, pretending to be asleep. Nichemous crept up, oh, so cunningly. He didn't want to wake poor old Muskwa, you see--not until he woke me with the bark of his Ironstick. Talk about smells, Mister Lynx. Wifh! the breath of that when it coughs is worse than the smell of Coyote--it's fairly blue in the air, it's so bad."

"SO I LAY STILL, PRETENDING TO BE ASLEEP."

"Where was Nichemous all this time?" cried Jack, mockingly.

"Have patience, little shaganappi (cheap) Bird. Nichemous saw my trail leading up to the log, but could not see it going away on the other side. I had just one eye cocked up where I could watch his face. Wheeze! it was a study. He'd raise one foot, shove it forward gently, put that big gut-woven shoe down slowly on the snow, and carry his body forward; then the other foot the same way, so as not to disturb me. Good, kind Nichemous! What a queer scent he gave to the air. Have any of you ever stepped on hot coals, and burned your foot?"

"I have!" cried Blue Wolf; "I had a fight with three Train Dogs once, at Wapiscaw, when their Masters were asleep. It was all over a miserable frozen White Fish that even the Dogs wouldn't eat. They were husky fighters. Wur-r-r! we rolled over and over, and finally I fetched up in the camp-fire."

"Then you know what your paw smelled like when the coals scorched it; and that is just the nasty scent that came down the air from Nichemous--like burnt skin. I could have nosed him a mile away had he been up wind, but he wasn't at first. When Nichemous got to the big log, he reached his yellow face over, with the Ironstick in line with his nose, and I saw murder in his eyes, so I just took one swipe at the top of his head with my right paw and scalped him clean. Whu-u-o-o-f-f-! but he yelled. The Ironstick barked as he went head first into the snow, and its hot breath scorched my arm--underneath where there's little hair; but the round iron thing it spits out didn't touch me. I gave Nichemous a squeeze, threw him down, and went away. I was mad enough to have slain him, but I'm glad I didn't. It's not good to kill a Man. You see I was cross," he added, apologetically, "and my head ached from living in that stuffy hole all Winter."

"Didn't it hurt your paw?" queried Jack. "I should have thought your fingers would have been tender from sucking them so much while you were sleeping in the nest."

"That's what saved Nichemous's life," answered Muskwa. "My fist was swollen up like a moss-bag, else the blow would have crushed his skull. But I knocked the fur all off the top; and his wife, who is a great medicine woman, couldn't make it grow again; though she patched the skin up some way or other. That is why you'll see Nichemous's hat tied on with a red handkerchief always."

"I also know of this Man," wheezed Otter. "Nichemous stepped on my slide once when he was poaching my preserve--I had it all nice and smooth, and slippery, and the silly creature, without a claw to his foot, tried to walk on it."

"What happened, Long-Back?" asked Jack, eagerly.

"Well, he went down the slide faster than ever I did, head first; but, would you believe it, on his back."

"Into the water?" queried Muskrat. "That wouldn't hurt him."

"He was nearly drowned," laughed Nekik. "The current carried him under some logs, but he got out, I'm sorry to say. That's the worst of it, we never manage to kill these Men."

"I killed one once," proclaimed Mooswa--"stamped him with my front feet, and his friends never found him; but I wouldn't do it again, the look in his eyes was awful--no, I'll never do it again."

"They'll kill you some day, Marrow-Bones," declared Jay, blithely.

"That's what this Man tried to do."

"Tell us about it, Comrade," cried Carcajou, "for I like to hear of the tables being turned once in a while. Why, Mistress Carcajou frightens the babies to sleep by telling them that François, or Nichemous, or some other Trapper will catch them if they don't close their eyes and stop crying--it's just awful to live in continual dread of Man."

"He was an Indian named Grasshead," began Mooswa, lying down to tell the little tale comfortably. "I had just crossed the Athabasca on the ice; he'd been watching, no doubt, and as I went up the bank his Firestick coughed, and the ball struck me in the neck. Of course I cleared off into the woods at a great rate."

"Didn't stop to thank the Man, eh, old Pretty Legs?" questioned Jack, ironically.

"There was a treacherous crust on the snow; sometimes it would bear me up, and sometimes I would go through up to my chest, for it was deep. Grasshead wore those big shoes that Muskwa speaks of, and glided along the top; but my feet are small and hard, you know, and cut the crust."

"See!" piped Jay, "there's where pride comes in. All of you horned creatures are so proud of your little feet, and unless the ground is hard you soon get done up."

"Well," continued Mooswa, "sometimes I'd draw away many miles from the Indian. Once I circled wide, went back close to my trail, laid down in a thicket, and watched for him. He passed quite close, trailing along easily on top of the snow, chewing a piece of dried moose-meat--think of that, Brothers! stuck in his loose shirt was dried-meat, cut from the bodies of some of my relatives; even the shirt itself was made from one of their hides. His little eyes were vicious and cruel; and several times I heard him give the call of our wives, which is, 'Wh-e-a-u-h-h-h!' That was that I might come back, thinking it was one of my tribe calling. All day he trailed me that way, and twice I rested as I speak of. Then Grasshead got cunning. He travelled wide of my trail, off to one side, meaning to come upon me lying down or circling. The second day of his pursuit I was very tired, and the Indian was always coming closer and closer.

"Getting desperate, I laid a trap for him. It was the Firestick I feared really; for without that he was no match for me. With our natural strength, he with his arms and teeth, and I with my hoofs and horns, I could kill him easily. Why, once I slew three Wolves, nearly as large as Rof; they were murderous chaps who tackled me in the night. It wouldn't do to fight Grasshead where the crust was bad on the deep snow, so I made for a Jack-pine bluff."

"I know," interrupted Black Fox, nodding his head; "nice open ground with no underbrush to bother--just the place for a rush when you've marked down your Bird. Many a Partridge I've pinned in one of those bluffs."

"Yes," went on Mooswa, "the pine needles kill out everything but the silver-green moss. The snow wasn't very deep there; it was an ideal place for a charge--nothing to catch one's horns, or trip a fellow. As Grasshead came up he saw me leaning wearily against a tree, and thought I was ready to drop. I was tired, but not quite that badly used up. You all know, Comrades, how careful an Indian is not to waste the breath of his Ironstick; he will creep, and creep, and sneak, just like--"

"Lynx," suggested Whisky-Jack.

"Well, Grasshead, seeing that I couldn't get away, as he thought, came cautiously to within about five lengths, meaning to make sure of my death, you know, Brothers; and just as he raised his Ironstick I charged. He didn't expect that--it frightened him. The ball struck me in the shoulder, and made me furious with rage. The Indian turned to run; but I cut him down, and trampled him to death--I ground him into the frozen earth with my antlers. He gave the queer Man-cry that is of fear and pain--it's awful! I wish he hadn't followed me--I wish I hadn't killed him."

"THE BALL STRUCK ME IN THE SHOULDER, AND MADE ME FURIOUS WITH RAGE."

"You were justified, Mooswa," said Black King; "there is no blame--that is the Law of the Forest:--

"'First we run for our lives,

Then we fight for our lives:

And we turn at bay when the killer drives."

"Bravo, bravo!" applauded Whisky-Jack. "Don't fret about the Indian, old Jelly-Nose. I'm glad you killed him. I've heard the White Trappers say that the only good Indians are the dead ones."

"My own opinion is that Indians are a fat-meat sight better than the Whites," declared Carcajou; "they don't tell as many lies, and they won't steal. They never lock a door here, but they do in the Whiteman's land. An Indian just puts his food down any place, or up on a cache, and nobody touches it; only, of course, the White Men who were here in the Boundaries last year looking for the yellow-sand--they stole from the caches."

"Nobody?" screamed Jay. "Nobody? What do you call yourself, Carcajou? How many bags of flour have you ripped open that didn't belong to you? How many pounds of bacon have melted away because of your hot mouth? I know. I've heard Ambrose, and François, and every other Trapper from the Landing to Fort Simpson swear you're the biggest thief since the time of Wiesahkechack. Why, you're as bad as a White Man by your own showing."

"Gently, Brother, gently. Didst ever hear your Men Friends tell the story of the pot and the kettle? Besides, is it unfair that I, or any of us, take a little from those who come here to steal the coats off our backs, and the lives from our hearts?"

"Indeed thou art the pot, Carcajou," retorted Jack; "but what do I steal? True, I took the piece of soap thinking it was butter; but that was a trifle, not the size of a Trap Bait; and if I take the Meat out of their Traps I do so that my Comrades may not be caught?"

"It is written in the Law of the Forest that is not stealing," said Black King, solemnly. "The Bait that is put in the Trap is for those of the Forest, so come it they be not caught; and even though the Trappers say otherwise, there is no wrong in taking it."

"I also take the Bait-meat," cried Wolverine, "for the good of my Brothers; but I spring the Trap too, lest by accident they put their foot in it."

"I also know Nichemous," broke in Umisk, the Beaver. "He cut a hole in the roof of my house one day, first blocking up the front door thinking we were inside, and meaning to catch us; he had his trouble for nothing, for I got the whole family out just in the nick of time; but I'd like to make him pay for repairs to the roof. I don't know any animal so bad as a Man, unless it's a Hermit Beaver."

"What's a Hermit Beaver, you of the little fore-feet?" asked Jay.

Umisk sighed wearily. "For a Bird that has travelled as much as you have, Jack, you are wondrous devoid of knowledge. Have you never seen Red Jack, the Hermit?"

"I have," declared Pisew, "he has a piece out of the side of his tail."

"Perhaps you have, perhaps you have; but all hermits are marked that way--that's the sign. You see, once in a while a Beaver is born lazy--won't work--will do nothing but steal other people's Poplar and eat it. First we reason with him, and try to encourage him to work; if that fails we bite a piece out of his tail as a brand, and turn him out of the community. I marked Red Jack that way myself; I boarded him for a whole Winter, though, first."

"Served him right," concurred Whisky-Jack.

"Yes, Nichemous is a bad lot," said Carcajou, reflectively; "but he's no worse than François."

Black Fox rose, stretched himself, yawned, and said: "The Meeting is over for to-day; three spaces of darkness from this we meet here again; there is some business of the Hunting Boundaries to do, and Wapoos has a complaint to make."

"I'm off," whistled Whisky-Jack. "Good-bye, Your Majesty. You fellows have got to hunt your dinner, I'm going to dine with some Men--I like my food cooked."

Each of the Animals slipped away, leaving Black Fox and his Mother, the Red Widow.

"I'm proud of you, my Son," said the Fox Mother. "Come home with me, I've got something rare for dinner."

"What is it, Dame?"

"A nice, fat Wavey" (kind of goose).

"What! Wawao, who nests in the Athabasca Lake? You make my mouth water, Mother. These Mossberry-fed Partridge are so dry they give me indigestion; besides, I never saw them so scarce as they are this year."

"It was the great fire the river Boatmen started in the Summer which burnt up all their eggs that makes them so scarce, Son. Do you not remember how we had to fly to the river, and lie for days with our noses just above water to escape the heat?"

"It's an ill wind, Mother, that blows nobody good, for it nearly cured me of fleas. My fur is not like Beaver's. But the Wavies fly high, and do not nest hereabout--how came you by the Fat Bird?"

"A Hunter hurt it with his Firestick, and it fell in the water with a broken wing. I was watching. I think he is still looking down the river for his Wavey."

THE LAW OF THE BOUNDARIES

Three days later, as had been spoken in the Council, Black King, accompanied by three Fox Brothers, and his Mother the Red Widow, crept cautiously into the open space that was fringed by a tangle of Red and Gray Willows, inside of which grew a second frieze of Raspberry Bushes, sat on his haunches and peered discontentedly, furtively about. There was nobody, nothing in sight--nothing but the dilapidated old Hudson's Bay Company's Log Shack that had been a Trading Post, and against which Time had leaned so heavily that the rotted logs were sent sprawling in a disconsolate heap.

"This does not look overmuch like our Council Court, does it, Dame?" he asked of the Red Widow. "I, the King, am first to arrive--ah, here is Rof!" as Blue Wolf slouched into the open, his froth-lined jaws swinging low in suspicious watchfulness.

"I'm late," he growled, sniffing at each bush and stump as he made the circuit of the Court. "What! only Your Majesty and the Red Widow here as yet. It's bad form for our Comrades to keep the King waiting."

While Blue Wolf was still speaking the Willows were thrust open as though a tree had crashed through them, and Mooswa's massive head protruded, just for all the world as if hanging from a wall in the hall of some great house. His Chinese-shaped eyes blinked at the light. "May I be knock-kneed," he wheezed plaintively, "if it didn't take me longer to do those thirty miles this morning than I thought it would--the going was so soft. I should have been here on time, though, if I hadn't struck just the loveliest patch of my favourite weed at Little Rapids--where the fire swept last year, you know."

"That's what the Men call Fire-weed," cried Carcajou, pushing his strong body through the fringe of berry bushes.

"That's because they don't know," retorted Mooswa; "and because it always grows in good soil after the Fire has passed, I suppose."

"Where does the seed come from, Mooswa?" asked Lynx, who had come up while they were talking. "Does the Fire bring it?"

"I don't know," answered the Bull Moose.

"It is not written in Man's books, either," affirmed Carcajou.

"Can the King, who is so wise, tell us?" pleaded Fisher, who had arrived.

"Manitou sends it!" Black Fox asserted decisively.

"The King answers worthily," declared Wolverine. "If Mooswa can stand in the Fire-flower until it tops his back, and eat of the juice-filled stalk without straining his short neck until his belly is like the gorge of a Sturgeon, what matters how it has come. Let the Men, who are silly creatures, bother over that. Manitou has sent it, and it is good; that is enough for Mooswa."

"You are late, Nekik," said the King, severely; "and you, too, Sakwasu."

"I am lame!" pleaded Otter.

"My ear is bleeding!" said Mink.

"Who got the Fish?" queried Carcajou. They both tried to look very innocent.

"What Fish?" asked Black Fox.

"My Fish," replied Mink.

"Mine!" claimed Otter, in the same breath.

Wolverine winked solemnly at the Red Widow.

"Yap! that won't do--been fighting!" came from the King.

"It was a Doré, Your Majesty," pleaded Sakwasu, "and I caught him first."

"Just as I dove for him," declared Otter, "Sakwasu followed after and tried to take him from me--a great big Fish it was. I've been fishing for four years, but this was the biggest Doré I ever saw--why, he was the length of Pisew."

"A Fisherman's lie," quoth the Red Widow.

"Who got the Doré? That's the main question," demanded Carcajou.

"He escaped," replied Nekik, sorrowfully; "and we have come to the Meeting without any breakfast."

"Bah! Bah! Bah!" laughed Blue Wolf; "that's rich! Hey, Muskwa, you heard the end of the story--isn't it good?"

"I, too, have had no breakfast," declared Muskwa, "so I don't see the point--it's not a bit funny. Seven hard-baked Ant Hills have I torn up in the grass-flat down by the river, and not a single dweller in one of them. My arms ache, for the clay was hard; and the dust has choked up my lungs. Wuf-f-f! I could hardly get my breath coming up the hill, and I have more mortar in my lungs than Ants in my stomach."

"Are there no Berries to be had, then, Muskwa?" asked Wapistan.

"Oh, yes; there are Berries hereabouts, but they're all hard and bitter. The white Dogberries, and the pink Buffalo-berries, and the Wolf-willow berries--what are they? Perhaps not to be despised in this Year of Famine, for they pucker up one's stomach until a Cub's ration fills it; but the Saskatoons are now dry on the Bush, and I miss them sorely. Gluck! they're the berries--full of oil, not vinegar; a feed of them is like eating a little Sucking Pig."

"What's a Sucking Pig?" queried Lynx; "I never saw one growing."

"I know," declared Carcajou. "The Priest over at Wapiscaw had six little white fellows in a small corral. They had voices like Pallas, the Black Eagle. I could always tell when they were being fed, their wondrous song reached a good three miles."

"That's where I got mine," remarked Muskwa, looking cautiously about to see that there were no eavesdroppers; "I had three, and the Priest keeps three. But talking of food, one Summer I crossed the great up-hills that Men call Rockies, and along the rivers of that land grows just the loveliest Berry any poor Bear ever ate."

"Saskatoons?" queried Carcajou.

"No, the Salmon Berry--great, yellow, juicy chaps, the size of Mooswa's nose."

"Fat Birds! what a sized Berry!" ejaculated the Widow, dubiously.

"Well, almost as big," modified Muskwa; "and sweet and nippy. Ugh! ugh! It was like eating a handful of the fattest black Ants you ever tasted."

"I don't eat Ants," declared the Red Widow.

"Neither did I this morning, I'm sorry to say," added Bear, hungrily.

"Weren't they hairy little Beggars, Muskwa?" asked Blue Wolf, harking back longingly to the meat food.

"What, the Salmon Berries?"

"No; the Padre's little Pigs at Wapiscaw."

"Yes, somewhat; I had bristles in my teeth for a week--awfully coarse fur they wore. But they were noisy little rats--the screeching gave me an earache. Huf, huf, huh! You should have seen the Factor, who is a fat, pot-bellied little Chap, built like Carcajou, come running with his short Otter-shaped legs when he heard me among the Pigs."

"What did you do, Muskwa--weren't you afraid?" asked the Red Widow.

"I threw a little Pig out of the corral and he took to the Forest. The Factor in his excitement ran after him, and I laughed so much to see this that I really couldn't eat a fourth Pig."

"But you did well," cried Black King; "there's nothing like a good laugh at meal-time to aid digestion."

"I thought they would eat like that, Muskwa," continued Blue Wolf. "You remember the thick, white-furred animals they once brought to the Mission at Lac La Biche?"

"Sheep," interposed Mooswa, "I remember them; stupid creatures they were--always frightened by something; and always bunching up together like the Plain Buffalo, so that a Killer had more slaying than running to do amongst them."

"That was the worst of it," declared Blue Wolf. "My Pack acted as foolishly as Man did with the Buffalo--killed them all off in a single season, for that very reason."

"And for that trick Man put the blood-bounty on your scalp," cried Carcajou.

"Oh, the bounty doesn't matter so long as I keep the scalp on my own head. But, as I was going to say, the queer fur they had got into my teeth, and made me fair furious. Where one Sheep would have sufficed for my supper, I killed three--though I'm generally of an even temper. The Priest did much good in this country--"

"Bringing in the Sheep, eh?" interrupted Carcajou.

"Perhaps, perhaps; each one according as his interests are affected."

"The Priests are a benefit," asserted Marten. "The Father at Little Slave Lake had a corral full of the loveliest tame Grouse--Chickens, they called them. They were like the Sheep, silly enough to please the laziest Hunter."

"Did you join the Mission, Brother?" asked Carcajou, licking his chops hungrily.

"For three nights," answered Wapistan, "then I left it, carrying a scar on my hip from the snap of a white bob-tailed Dog they call a Fox-terrier. A busy, meddlesome, yelping little cur, lacking the composure of a Dweller in the Boundaries. I became disgusted at his clatter and cleared out."

"A Fox what?" asked the Red Widow. "He was not of our tribe to interfere with a Comrade's Kill."

"It must have been great hunting," remarked Black King, his mouth watering at the idea of a corral full of Chickens.

"It was!" asserted Wapistan. "All in a row they sat, shoulder to shoulder--it was night, you know. They simply blinked at me with their glassy eyes, and exclaimed, 'Peek! Peek!' until I cut their throats. Yes, the Mission is a good thing."

"It is," concurred Black King--"they should establish more of them. But where in the world is Chatterbox, the Jay?"

"Gabbler the Fool must have trailed in with a party of Men going down the river," suggested Carcajou. "Nothing but eating would keep him away from a party of talkers."

"Well, Comrades," said Black King, "shall the Boundaries be the same as last year? Are there any changes to be made?"

"I roam everywhere; is that not so, King?" asked Muskwa.

"Yes; but not eat everywhere. There is truce for the young Beaver, because workmen are not free to the Kill."

"I have not eaten of Trowel Tail's Children," declared Muskwa, proudly. "I have kept the Law of the Boundaries."

"And yet he has lost two sons," said Black Fox, looking sternly about.

A tear trickled down the sandy beard of Beaver and glistened on his black nose.

"Two sturdy Sons, Your Majesty, a year old. Next year, or the year after, they would have gone out and built lodges of their own. Such plasterers I never saw in my life. Why, their work was as smooth as the inner bark of the Poplar; and no two Beavers on the whole length of Pelican River could cut down a tree with them."

"Oh, never mind their virtues, Trowel Tail," interrupted Carcajou, heartlessly; "they are dead--that is the main thing; and who killed them, the question. Who broke the Boundary Law is what we want to know."

"Whisky-Jack should be here during the inquiry," grumbled the King. "He's our detective--Jack sees everything, tells everything, and finds out everything. Shouldn't wonder but he knows--strange that he's not with us."

"Must have struck some Men friends, Your Majesty," said the Bull Moose. "As I drank at the river, twenty miles up, one of those floating houses the Traders use passed with two Men in it. There was the smell of hot Meat came to me, and if Jack was within a Bird's scent of the river, which is a long distance, he also would know of the food."

"Very likely, Mooswa," rejoined Black King. "A cooked pork rind would coax Jay from his duty any time. We must go on with the enquiry without him. Who broke the Law of the Boundaries and killed Umisk's two Sons?" he demanded sternly.

"I didn't," wheezed Mooswa, rubbing his big, soft nose caressingly down Beaver's back, as the latter sat on one of the old stumps. "I have kept the law. Like Muskwa I roam from lake to lake, and from river to river; but I kill no one--that is, with one exception."

"That was within the law," asserted the King, "for we kill in our own defence."

"I think it was Pisew," whispered the Red Widow. "See the Sneak's eye. Call him up, O Son, and command him to look straight into your Royal Face and say if he has kept the law."

"Pisew," commanded Black Fox, "come closer!"

Lynx started guiltily at the call of his name. There was something soft and unpleasant in the slipping sound of his big muffled feet as he walked toward the King.

"Has Pisew kept the Law of the Boundaries?" asked Black King, sternly, looking full in the mustached face of the slim-bodied cat.

Lynx turned his head sideways, and his eyes sought to avoid those of the questioner.

"Your Majesty, I roam from the Pelican on one side, to Fish Creek on the other; and the law is that therein I, who eat flesh, may kill Wapoos the Rabbit. This year it has been hard living, Your Majesty--hard living. Because of the fire, Wapoos fled beyond the waters of the creeks, and I have eaten of the things that could not fly the Boundaries--Mice, and Frogs, and Slugs: a diet that is horrible to think of. Look, Your Majesty, at my gaunt sides--am I not like one that is already skinned by the Trappers?"

"He is making much talk," whispered the Red Widow, "to the end that you forget the murder of Trowel Tail's Sons."

"Didst like Beaver Meat?" queried Black King, abruptly.

"I am not the slayer of Umisk's children," denied Lynx. "It was Wapoos, or Whisky-Jack; they are mischief makers, and ready for any evil."

"Oh, you silly liar!" cried Carcajou, in derision. "Wapoos the Rabbit kill a Beaver? Why not say the Moon came down and ate them up. Thou hast a sharp nose and a full appetite, but little brain."

"He is a poor liar!" remarked the Red Widow.

"I have kept the law," whined Lynx. "I have eaten so little that I am starved."

"What shall we do, Brothers, about the murdered Sons of Umisk? Beaver is the worker of our lands. But for him, and the dams he builds, the Muskegs would soon dry up, the fires would burn the Forests, and we should have no place to live. If we kill the Sons, presently there will be no workers--nobody but ourselves who are Killers." Black Fox thus put the case wisely to the others.

"Gr-a-a-h-wuh! let me speak," cried Blue Wolf. "Pisew has done this thing. If any in my Pack make a kill and I come to speak of it, do I not know from their eyes that grow tired, which it is?"

Said the Lieutenant, Carcajou: "I think you are right, Rof; but you can't hang a Comrade because he has weak eyes. No one has seen Pisew make the kill. We must have a new law, Your Majesty. That if again Kit-Beaver, or Cub-Fox, or Babe-Wapoos, or Young-Anyone is slain for eating, we shall all, sitting in Council, decide who is to pay the penalty. I think that will stop this murderous poaching."

"It will," whispered the Red Widow. "Lynx will never touch one of them again. He knows what Carcajou means."

"That is a new law, then," cried the King. "If any of Umisk's children are killed by one of us, sitting in Council we shall decide who is to be executed for the crime."

"Please, Your Majesty," squeaked Rabbit, "I keep the Boundary Law, but others do not. From Beaver's dam to the Pelican, straighter than a Man's trail, are my three Run-ways. My Cousin's family has three more; and in the Muskeg our streets run clear to view. Beyond our Run-ways we do not go. Nor do we build houses in violation of the law--only roads are we allowed, and these we have made. In the Muskeg parks, the nice open places Beaver has formed by damming back the waters, we labor.

"When the young Spruce are growing, and would choke up the park, we strip the bark off and they die, and the open is still with us. Neither do we kill any Animal, nor make trouble for them--keeping well within the law. Are we not ourselves food for all the Animal Kingdom? Lynx lives off us, and Marten lives off us, and Fox lives off us, and Wolf and Bear sometimes. Neither I nor my Tribe complains, because that law is older than the laws we make ourselves.

"But have we not certain rights which are known to the Council? For one hour in the morning, and one hour in the evening, just when the Sun and the Stars change their season of toil, are we not to be free from the Hunting?"

"Yes, it is written," replied Black King, "that no one shall kill Wapoos at the hour of dusk and the hour of dawn. Has anyone done so?"

"If they have, it's a shame!" cried Carcajou. "I do not eat Wapoos; but if everything else fails--if the Fish fail, if there are no Berries, if the Nuts and the Seeds are dried in the heart before they ripen, we still have Wapoos to carry us over. The Indians know this--it is of their history; and many a time has Wapoos, the Rabbit, our Little Brother, saved them from starvation."

"Who has slain Wapoos at the forbidden hour?" thundered Black King.

Again there was denial all around the circle; and again everybody felt convinced that Lynx was the breaker of the law. Said Black Fox: "It is well because of the new ruling we have passed, I think. If again Wapoos is killed or hunted at the forbidden hours, we shall decide in Council who must die."

"Also, O King," still pleaded Rabbit, "for all time have we claimed another protection. You know our way of life. For seven years we go on peopling the streets of our Muskeg Cities, growing more plentiful all the time, until there is a great population. Then comes the sickness on The Seventh Year, and we die off like Flies."

"It has been so for sixty years," assented Mooswa. "My father, who is sixty, has always known of this thing."

"For a hundred times sixty, Brother," quoth Carcajou; "it is so written in the legends of the Indians."

"It is a queer sickness," continued Wapoos. "The lumps come in our throats, and under our arms, and it kills. Your Majesty knows the Law of the Seventh Season."

"Yes, it is that no one shall eat Wapoos that year, or next."

"Most wise ruling!" concurred Carcajou. "The Rabbits with the lumps in their necks are poisonous. Besides, when there are so few of them, if they were eaten, the food supply of the Boundaries would be forever gone. A most wise rule."

"Has any one violated this protection-right?" asked the King.

"Yes, Your Majesty. This is the Seventh Year, is it not?" said Rabbit.

"Bless me! so it is," exclaimed Mooswa, thoughtfully. "I, who do not eat Rabbits, have paid no attention to the calendar. I wondered what made the woods so silent and dreary; that's just it. No pudgy little Wapooses darting across one's path. Why, now I remember, last year, The Year of the Plenty, when I laid down for a rest they'd be all about me. Actually sat up on my side many a time."

"Yes, it's the Seventh Year," whined Lynx; "look how thin I am. Perhaps miles and miles of river bank, and not even a Frog to be had."

"Alas! it's the Plague-year," declared Wapoos; "and my whole family were stricken with the sickness. They died off one--by--one--" Here he stopped, and covered his big, sympathetic eyes with soft, fur-ruffed hands. His tender heart choked.

Mooswa sniffed through his big nose, and browsed absent-mindedly off the Gray-willows. My! but they were bitter--he never ate them at any time; but one must do something when a Father is talking about his dead Children.

"Did they all die, Wapoos?" asked Otter; and in his black snake-like eyes there actually glistened a tear of sympathy.

"Yes; and our whole city was almost depopulated."

"Dreadful!" cried Carcajou.

"The nearest neighbor left me was a Widow on the third main Run-way--two cross-paths from my lane. All her family died off, even the Husband. We were a great help to each other in the way of consolation, and became fast friends. Yesterday morning, when I called to talk over our affliction, there was nothing left of her but a beautiful, white, fluffy tail."

"Horrible! oh, the Wretch!" screamed Black Fox's Mother; "to treat a Widow that way--eat her!"

"If I knew who did it," growled Muskwa, savagely, "I would break his neck with one stroke of my fist. Poor little Wapoos! come over here. Eat these Black Currants that I've just picked--I don't want them."

"That is a most criminal breach of the law," said the King, with emphasis. "If Wapoos can prove who did it, we'll give the culprit quick justice."

"Flif--fluf, flif--fluf," came the sound of wings at this juncture, and with an erratic swoop Whisky-Jack shot into the circle.

He was trembling with excitement--something of tremendous importance had occurred; every blue-gray feather of his coat vibrated with it. He strutted about to catch his breath, and his walk was the walk of one who feels his superiority.

"Good-morning, Glib-tongue!" greeted Carcajou.

"Welcome, Clerk!" said the King, graciously.

"Hop up on my antler," murmured Mooswa, condescendingly; "you'll get your throat full of dust down there."

Whisky-Jack swished up on the big platter-like leaf that was the first spread of Mooswa's lordly crown. He picked a remnant of meat food from his beak with his big toe, coughed three times impressively, and commenced:--

"Comrades, who do you suppose has come within our Boundaries?"

"Is it Cougar, the Slayer?" asked Black King, apprehensively.

"Is it Death Song, the Rattler, he who glides?" cried Marten, his little legs trembling with fear.

"Has my cousin, Ookistutoowan the Grizzly, come down from his home in the up-hills to dispute with me the way of the road?" queried Black Bear, Muskwa. "I am ready for him!" he declared, shaking his back like a huge St. Bernard.

"Didst see Train Dogs, bearer of ill news?" demanded Wolf. "Ur-r-r! I fear not!" and he bared his great yellow fangs viciously.

"Worse, worse still!" piped Whisky-Jack, spreading his wings out, and sloping his small round head down toward them. "Worse than any you have mentioned--some one to make you all tremble."

"Tell us, tell us!" cried Carcajou. "One would think Wiesahkechack had come back from his Spirit Home where the Northern Lights grow."

"François has come!" declared the Jay, in an even, dramatic voice.

The silence of consternation settled over the group.

"François and The Boy!" added Jack.

"What's a Boy?" asked Lynx.

"I know," asserted Mooswa. "When I was a calf in the Company's corral at Fort Resolution, I played with a Boy, the Factor's Man-Cub. Great Horns! he was nice. Many a time he gave me to eat the queer grass things that grew in the Factor's garden."

"Where is François?" queried the King.

"At Red Stone Brook--he and The Boy. I had breakfast with them."

"Renegade!" sneered Carcajou.

"And François says they will stay here all Winter and kill fur. There are three big Bear Traps in the outfit--I saw them, Muskwa; what think you? Great steel jaws to them, with hungry teeth. They would crack the leg of a Moose, even a Buffalo; and there are Number Four Traps for Umisk and Nekik; and smaller ones for you, Mister Marten--many of them. Oh, my! but it's nice to have an eight-dollar coat. All the Thief-trappers in the land covet it.

"And François has an Ironstick, and The Boy has an Ironstick, and there will be great sport here all Winter. That's what François said, and I think it is true--not that a Half-breed sticks to the truth over-close."

The Hunt-fear settled over the gathering. No one had heart even to check the spiteful gibes of their feathered Clerk. The Law of the Boundaries, and the suspicious evidence of its violation that pointed to Lynx, were forgotten--which was, perhaps, a good thing for that unprincipled poacher.

Black King was first to break the fear-silence.

"Subjects, draw close, for already it has come to us that we have need of all our wisdom, and all our loyalty one to another, and the full strength of our laws."

Silently they bunched up; then he proceeded:--

"François is a great Hunter. He has the cunning of Wolverine, the strength of Muskwa, the speed of mine own people, and the endurance of Mooswa. Besides, there are the Traps, and the Ironstick; and Snares made from Deer-sinew and Cod-line. The soft strong cord which Man weaves. Also will this Evil Slayer, who is but a vile Half-breed, have the White Powder of Death in a tiny bottle--such a small bottle, and yet holding enough Devil-medicine to slay every Dweller in the Boundaries."

"That it will, Your Majesty," confirmed Jack; "and it kills while you breathe thrice--so, If-f-h, if-f-h, if-f-h! and you fall--your legs kick out stiff, and you are dead. I've seen it do its terrible work."

"Just so," assented Black King. "The use of that is against Man's law, even; but François cares not, so be it the Red-coats know not of its use. Now must we take an oath to help one the other, if we prefer not to have our coats nailed on the Hunt-Man's Shack walls, or stretched on the wedge-boards he uses for the hides of Otter, and Mink, and Fisher, and myself. Even Muskrat and Pisew go on a wedge-board when they are skinned. You, Beaver, and Muskwa, and Mooswa have your skins stretched by iron thorns on the side of a Shack.

"Now take we the oath?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

A murmur of eager assent started with the deep bass of Blue Wolf and died away in the plaintive treble of Wapoos.

"Then, listen and repeat with me," he commanded.

THE OATH OF THE BOUNDARIES.

"'We, Dwellers within the Boundaries, swear by the Spirit of Wiesahkechack, who is God of the Indians and all Animals, that, come Trap, come Ironstick, come White-powdered Bait, come Snare, come Arrow, come what soe'er may, we will help each other, and warn each other, and keep ward for each other; in the Star-time and the Sun-time, in the Flower-time and the Snow-time; that the call of one for help shall be the call of all; and the fight of one shall be the fight of all; and the enemy of one shall be the enemy of all.

"'By the Mark that is on the tail of each of us, we swear this. By the White Tip that is on the tail of Fox; by the Black Gloss that is on the tail of Marten; by the Perfume that is on the tail of Sikak; by the great, bushy tail of Blue Wolf, and the short tail of Bear; the broad, hairless tail of Beaver, and the strong tapered tail of Otter; by the Kink that is in the tail of Mink; by the much-haired tail of Fisher; the white Cotton-tail of Rabbit, the fawn-coloured tail of Mooswa, and the Bob-tail of Lynx; by the feathered tail of Whisky-Jack: and all others according to their Tail-mark, we swear it.'"

"Now," said Black King, "François will have his work cut out, for we are many against one."

"You forget The Boy, Your Majesty," interrupted Carcajou.

"Oh, he doesn't count," cried Jack, disdainfully. "He's a Moneas--which means a greenhorn. He's new to the Forest--has lived where the paths of Man are more plentiful than the Run-ways in Wapoos's Muskeg.

"Of course, personally, I don't mind their coming--like it; it means free food without far flying. Oh, but The Boy is a wasteful greenhorn. When he fried the white fat-meat, which is from the animal that dwells with Man, the Hog, he poured the juice out on the leaves, and the cold turned it into food like butter--white butter. Such rich living will make my voice soft. The Man-cub has a voice like mine--full of rich, sweet notes. Did any of you ever hear a Man or Man-cub sing 'Down upon the Suwanee River'? That's what The Boy sang this morning. But I don't know that river--it's not about here; and in my time I have flown far and wide over more broad streams than I have toes to my feet."

"Be still, empty-head!" cried the King, angrily. "You chatter as though the saving of our lives were good fun. Brother Carcajou, François needs no help. For five years he has followed me for my Black Coat--for five Winters I have eluded his Traps, and his Baits, and the cough of his Ironstick. But one never knows when the evil day is to come. Last Winter François trapped on Hay River. I was there; as you know, it is a great place for Black Currants."

"Do you eat the bitter, sour Berries, Your Majesty?" queried Marten.

"No, Silly; except for the flavour of them that is in the flesh of Gay Cock, the Pheasant. But it is in every child's book of the Fox tribe, that where Berries are thick, the Birds are many."

"How comes François here to the Pelican this year, then?" growled Blue Wolf.

"Because of the thing Men call Fate," answered Black King, learnedly; "though they do not understand the shape of it. We call it the Whisper of Wiesahkechack. Wiesahke whispered to me that because of the fire there were no Berries at Hay River, that the Birds had all come to the Pelican; and I have no doubt that He, who is the King of evil Mischief Makers, has also talked in thought-words to François, that here is much fur to be had for the killing."

"I should like to see François," exclaimed Nekik, the Otter.

"And The Boy!" suggested Mooswa. "It's years since I saw a Man-cub."

"W-h-e-u-f-f-!" ejaculated Muskwa. "I saw a Man once--Nichemous. Did I tell you about--"

"Save me from Owls!" interrupted Whisky-Jack; "that's your stock-story, old Squeaky Nose. I've heard it fifty times in the last two years."

The Bear stood rocking his big body back and forth while the saucy bird chattered.

"But I should like to see more of Man," he continued, when Jay had finished. "Tell me, Jack, do they always walk on their hind-legs--or only when they are going to kill or fight--as I do? I think we must be cousins," he went on, meditatively.

"You ought to be ashamed of it, then!" snapped the Bird.

"They leave a trail just like mine," proceeded Muskwa, paying no attention to the Jay. "I once saw a Man's track on the mud bank of the river; I could have sworn it was one of my family had passed--a long foot-print with a heel."

"Perhaps it was your own track--you are so terribly stupid at times," suggested Jack.

"You might have made that mistake," retorted Muskwa, "for you can't scent; but when I investigated with my nose, I knew that it was Man. There was the same horrible smell that came to me once as two of these creatures passed down the river in a canoe, whilst I was eating Berries by the water's edge. But you spend most of your time begging a living from these Men, Jack--tell me if they generally walk as I do, on all fours?"

"Long ago they did, Muskwa; when their brains were small, like yours. Then they developed, and got more sense, and learned to balance themselves on their hind-legs."

"What's the use of having four legs and only using two?" grunted Bear, with a dissatisfied air.

"You'll find out, my Fat Friend, if you come within range of the Ironstick--what did Nichemous try to do? After that you won't ask silly questions, for François will take your skin, dry it in the sun, and put your brainless head on a tree as a Medicine Offering to the Hunt Spirit; and he'll take your big carcass home, and The Boy will help him eat it. Don't bother me about Man--if you want to know his ways, come and see for yourself."

"I'd like to, Clerk," answered Bear, humbly.

"They're going to build a house," asserted Whisky-Jack.

"A lodge!" exclaimed Beaver. "Oh, I must see that."

"What say you, Black King?" queried Carcajou. "May we all go to-morrow, and see this Trapper and The Boy--think you it's safe?"

"Better now than when the Traps are set and Firestick loaded."

So they arranged amongst themselves to go at dawn the next day, and watch from the bush François and Roderick.

Then the meeting broke up.

THE BUILDING OF THE SHACK

Next morning, just as the gray oncoming Day was rolling back into the Forest depths the Night curtain, Muskwa, who was swinging along leisurely, with a walk like a Blue-Jacket, towards the Trapper's Camp, discovered Wapoos sitting in his path.

"A snareless runway to you, Little Brother! Are you heading for the Shack?"

"Yes," bleated Wapoos; "I'm still weak from the Seventh Year sickness, and hop badly, I fear."

"Jump up, Afflicted One, your furry stomach will feel warm on my back,--Huh! huh! this beastly fog that comes up from the waters of the Athabasca to battle with the sunlight gets into my lungs. I shall soon have to creep into a warm nest for my long sleep."

"Hast seen any of our Comrades?" queried Wapoos, as he lay in the velvet cushion of black fur that was a good four inches deep on Bear's back.

"I heard Rof's hoarse bay as he called across the Pelican to some one. Here is Nekik's trail, where his belly has scraped all the mud spots."

"Aren't we a funny lot?" giggled Wapoos. "Mooswa's legs are like the posts of Man's cache--so long; and Otter's are like the knots on a tree--too short. See! there goes Black King and his red-headed Mother."

"That is the queerest outfit in the Boundaries," chuckled Muskwa. "The Widow is red, and three of the Sons; the Babe, Stripes, is brown, with a dark cross on his back; while the King is as black as my Daddy was. Sweet Honey! but his coat was beautiful--like the inside of a hole on a pitch-dark night. There is a family of Half-breeds up at The Landing just like the Widow's lot. Some are red-haired, some are brown, and some are black. I saw them once Fishing at Duck Lake."

"Did they see you, Muskwa?"

"Am I not here, Little Brother--therefore their eyes were busy with the Fish. Wu-u-f-f! I catch the scent of Man. Jump down, Wapoos; push through the Willows and tell me what thou seest."

Bear sat on his haunches and waited.

"There's a white lodge," reported Rabbit, as he hopped back, "and inside is a throat-call that is not of our Comrades."

"That's Man's tepee; most like it was The Boy's song your big ears heard."

They went forward gingerly, Wapoos acting as pilot. In a little open space where Red Stone Brook emptied into the Athabasca was a small "A" tent. The two comrades lay down in the willows to watch. Soon they were joined by Black King; Otter was already there. Then came Blue Wolf and Mooswa. As Carcajou joined them, Whisky-Jack fluttered into the centre of the party.

"That's a Tent," he said, with the air of a courier explaining sights to a party of tourists. "The Boy is putting on his fur. Do you hear his song-cry?"

"He hath a full stomach," growled Rof, "for his voice is rich in content. What is the cry, Bird of Knowledge?"

"It's a song of my Crow Cousins. I'll repeat a line for your fur-filled ears:--

"'There were three crows sat on a tree,

And they were black as crows could be;

Said one of them unto his mate,

Let's catch old Carcajou to ate!'"

"All of a kind flock together," retorted Wolverine; "Birds, and Boys, and Fools!"

Jack chuckled. To have roused Carcajou's anger was something to start the day with.

"Plenty of Water to you all, Comrades," greeted Beaver pleasantly, patting a smooth seat for himself with his tail, as he joined the others.

"Where is the Man?" queried Black King.

"Sleeping!" answered Jack. "He makes a noise with his nose like fat Muskwa does when he runs from Grizzly."

"That's a pretty lodge," remarked Beaver, critically. "When will they flood it?"

"Stupid! they don't live in water," reproved Jay. "If it is wet they make a little hollow path and run the water off."

"Is that a Dead-fall, Jack?" asked Muskwa, pointing his gray nozzle at a small square building that was three logs high.

"It's their Shack; they started it yesterday."

"A poor Lodge!" declared Umisk. "The first flood will undermine the corners, and down it will come. Have they no trowel-tails to round it up with good blue-clay?"

"Umisk, you should travel. Your ideas are limited. Have they not built their Shack on high ground where there will be no flood?"

"But they'll freeze in the Winter," persisted Beaver. "The water would keep them warm if they flooded it."

"They've got a stove," the Courier answered.

"What's a stove?" asked Lynx.

"You'll find out, Mister Cat, when they make bouillon of your ribs. It's that iron-thing with one long ear."

"Is that their breakfast--that pile of wood-meat?" queried Beaver.

"Yes, meat for the stove," piped Jack. "Do you think they have teeth like a wood-axe and eat bark because you do?"

"They have queer teeth, sure enough," retorted Trowel Tail. "See this tree stump, cut flat from two sides, all full of notches, as though a Kit-Beaver who didn't know his business had nibbled it down. How in the name of Good Dams they can fell trees into a stream that way I can't make out. This tree fell on land and they had to carry the logs. They're silly creatures and have much to learn."

"There's The Boy!" whispered Jack, nudging Muskwa in the ribs with his wing.

They all peered eagerly at the door of the tent, for a white-skinned hand was unlacing it. Then a fair face, with rosy cheeks, topped by a mass of yellow hair, was thrust through the opening, and presently a lad of fourteen stepped out, stretched his arms upward, and commenced whistling like a bird.

"That's the Boy-call," said Black King, in a soft voice. "Listen, Comrades, so that we may know it. François gives voice to the Man-call: 'Hi, yi! hi, yi! E-e-e-g-o-o-o-!' which means, in their talk, 'Hear! hear! it is I--I--A Man!' That is because they claim to be Lords of all the Animal Kingdom, even as I am Ruler in our own Boundaries."

"What a lovely Pup!" cried the Red Widow, enthusiastically; "he's got yellow hair just like my Babe--look, Stripes! Plump Birds! but I wish I had him in my litter."

"'Pup,' indeed!" exclaimed Whisky-Jack, indignantly. "A Man-Boy called 'Pup,' by a frowsy old Fox Widow."

"Clerk!" interrupted Black King, angrily.

"François! François!" called The Boy, putting his face inside the tent; "the sun is up, the fog is gone, and I'm as hungry as a Wolf."

Rof started. "Gur-r-r-! how does the Cub know my stomach is lean because of the Seventh Year famine?"

A pair of sharp, black eyes gleamed from the tent flap. They belonged to the Half-breed Trapper, François.

"Move back, Brothers, a little into the Willows," whispered Black King; "he has Devil-eyes, like Wolverine."

"His Majesty flatters you, Carcajou," sneered Whisky-Jack.

François came out, took his axe, and made some shavings from a Jack-pine stick.

"Will they eat that?" asked Beaver.

The Breed stepped over to a Birch tree, peeled from its side a handful of silver, ribbon-like bark, and lighted it with a match; it blazed and crackled like oil-soaked shavings. Then he shoved it into the stove, put chips and three sticks of wood in, shut the door, and thick black smoke curled up from the stove pipe. The animals stared with extraordinary interest.

Whisky-Jack craned his head, and watched the effect of this magic on his Comrades.

"That's the Devil-thing that destroyed all the Birds and their Eggs," said the Red Widow. "It's the Man-fire."

Blue Wolf was trembling. "E-u-h! E-u-h!" he whined; "Man's Fire-medicine. It grows like the wind, and destroys like the Rabbit plague. Once seven Brothers of mine stalked a Man and he started this Fire-medicine."

"What happened, Rof?" asked Carcajou.

"The Man escaped."

"And your Seven Brothers?"

"This red-poison ate them as Otter devours a Fish--bones and all."

"I think the stove is a good thing," decided Black King. "The Man-fire is in a Trap."

"Yes, the Fire-trap is a good thing," concurred his Mother, "if we wish to save the Birds."

"And the Rabbits!" added Lynx.

"And the Berries!" grunted Muskwa.

"The purple Moose-weed grows after fire has eaten the Forest," mused Mooswa; "and if it glows hot and red on one river bank I swim to the other."

"It's all right for you, Long-legs, Pudding-nose, Bob-tail," gibed Whisky-Jack; "but the Law of the Boundaries is for the good of all, and this Fire-trap is a fine thing. I hate to have hot coals falling on my feathers, when the Forest is on fire."

The smoke curled lazily riverward, away from the animals. Suddenly it veered about and the pungent perfume of burning Birch-bark came toward them.

Mooswa straightened his massive head, spread the nostrils of his great cushion-shaped nose, cocked his thick ears forward intently, and discriminated between the different scents that came floating on the sleepy morning air.

"The fire breath--Wh-e-e!" It tickled a cough in his throat. "The odour of the Half-breed," ugh! he knew that--it was the Man-smell. "But stop! What?" A something out of the long ago crept into his sensitive nostrils and touched his memory. Surely once it had been familiar.

The Boy crossed directly in the wind's path, and Mooswa got it stronger. Then he knew. His big eyes glistened softly, eagerly; it was the scent of the Lad he had played with in his youth.

"Comrades," he gurgled, for something was in his throat, "have I not told you of the Boy who was the Factor's Young?"

"Whenever you got a chance!" snapped Whisky-Jack.

Mooswa sighed wearily. Jack's frivolity was tiring to his sedate mind.

"Well, that's my Boy there. I'd like to rub my nose against his rose-flowered cheek."

"While François tickled your lean ribs with the Firestick!" jeered the Bird.

"Bring a pot of water," said François to his comrade, "while I cut up the fish."

"Great Suckers!" exclaimed Nekik; "Fish! and a beauty, too. It's a Tulabie. I know them; they're first cousin to White-fish. These men have fine taste--a fish diet makes one clever."

"It does!" declared Mink.

"It's better than roots!" concurred Muskrat.

"Slow Birds! it makes me hungry," sighed the Red Widow.

"So it does me, Good Dame," piped Whisky-Jack. "You chaps had better slip away home now; I'm going to breakfast with the Men. It isn't safe to remain, for I can't stop to look after you."

"Go and clear the plates, Feather-front," cried Carcajou, malignantly.

Jack sawed the air energetically with his wings and lighted on the wire guy with which François had steadied the stove pipe.

"Shall we move, Comrades?" asked Black King.

"Wait and see how Jack gets on with The Boy," pleaded Mooswa.

"I could sit here and smell that Fish all day," declared Nekik.

"So could I," added Mink. "It's just lovely. I've never tasted Fish dried in the fire-pot. Once I stole one from a Trapper which he had dried in the sun--there was no juice in it."

"Pe-e-p! Peep!" squeaked Whisky-Jack. The Boy looked up at him.

"What a frowsy-headed old bird!" he exclaimed, shying a stick at Jay.

Muskwa dug Mooswa in the ribs with his big paw. "We'll see fun yet if we wait," he chuckled thickly.

"Don't bodder 'bout dat fell'," remonstrated François; "dat's only Whisky-Jack."

"Only what?" asked the lad.

"What dey call Canadienne Jay--Whisky-Jack."

"Shall I shoot him?"

"No; dat fell' no good, but he's not wort' de powder an' s'ot."

Jack heard a faint giggle come up from the gray willows, for Wolverine had his big-clawed fist half-way down his throat to choke the sound of laughter.

"Our Clerk's Men Friends are complimentary," remarked Black King.

The Boy cut a small piece of fat pork, stuck it on a sharp stick, and busied himself somewhat at the stove front; but the watchers could not quite see what he was doing.

"I think I'll give Jay some breakfast," he said suddenly; "the bird seems hungry:" and straightening his back, threw towards him the lump of pork.

With a pleased chuckle Jack swooped down and drove his beak into the white mass like a lance. Then he went through a rare set of gymnastic contortions, for the wicked Boy had heated the pork scalding hot. Jack clawed at it with his feet and burnt his toes--his tongue was blistered.

"What's that noise?" exclaimed Rod, for a distinct muffled laugh had escaped from the band of animals.

"It's de float-ice groundin' on de ribber-banks, I tink me," answered François, cocking his head sideways to listen.

As the animals slipped away in alarm, Jack came fluffing after them, and perched himself indignantly on Mooswa's great antlers.

"O my Giant Brother!" he cried furiously, "come and kill that debased Man-Cub, I beg you."

The Moose's shaggy sides were heaving with suppressed laughter. "What has he done, Sweet Bird?" he moaned.

"Taken the skin off my toes, and blistered my tongue with his accursed fat pork."

"Why don't you wear boots as I do, and not knock around barefooted? I should be always jamming my toes if I hadn't these thick boots. Why, last year when the big fire was on, I went through miles of burning country, and except a little hardening up of the soles, there was no harm done."

"But you don't wear them on your tongue, do you?" asked the Bird, crossly.

"No, Silent One, I don't--neither do you; but if you'll just wrap it up for a few days and give it a rest, I'm sure it will be all right."

"Do," cried Carcajou; "we sha'n't mind. I suppose that's what The Boy calls his Tongue Trap--he knew whom to set it for, too."

"Come and trample him with your sharp hoofs, dear Mooswa," pleaded Whisky-Jack, the lack of sympathy and the chaff making him furious.

"Oh, sit still, if you're going to ride on my horns," exclaimed the Bull. "You're jigging about--"

"As though he had corns," interrupted Carcajou.

"It was so nice of you, Whisky-Jack," said Lynx, in an oily tone, "to take care of us all while we were there--wasn't it? Some of us might have burned our tongues but for you destroying the hot Bait."

When the animals got back to their meeting-place, which was known as the Boundary Centre, they stopped for a time to compare notes.

"Comrades," said Mooswa, "little have I claimed from you. I kill not anything; neither the Fox Cubs, nor the Sons of Umisk, nor the red-tailed Birds that beat their wings like drums, nor anything. But this new law I ask of you all in the face of the King; for the Boy that was my Man-brother, the safeguard of the Boundaries."

"You have not had the hot-meat thrust in your throat, friend of the rascally Cub," objected Jack, angrily.

"Hush, Chatterer!" growled Bear; "let Mooswa speak."

"The horn-crowned Lord of the Forest gives expression to a noble sentiment," declared Pisew. "By all means let the Kit-Man grow free of the Boundary Fear, until his claws are long and his bone-cracking teeth are strong."

"He must have a Mother also," said the Red-Widow softly. "You have all forsworn malice to my Babe, Stripes, until he is of full strength--let the Man-Cub have the same guard."

"What about François?" objected Whisky-Jack. "By my Stone-crop I'll wager he taught that Chick the trick of the hot pork."

"For him," continued Mooswa, gravely, "in defence of our rights and our lives the full law of the Forest; by night, the lone road and the cry of Blue Wolf and his Brothers; by day, the strong clasp of Muskwa; at close quarters, the stamp of my hoofs; and for his Traps and their Bait, the cunning of Carcajou and Black King."

"This is fair--it is a good Law," said Black Fox.

"It is!" they all cried in chorus.

"I am satisfied!" added the Moose.

"I think it would be well, Subjects," said Black King, thoughtfully, "to watch this Man and Man-Cub until the setting out of the Traps; after that we can regulate our lives in accordance. How long will it take them to build their Shack, Clerk?"

"Four days, François told The Boy last evening, as he smoked the scent-flower."

"Then on the fourth day, three or four of us who are quick travellers had better go and watch the evil ways of this Slayer. What say you all?"

"Most wise King," exclaimed Pisew, "select thou the Strong Runners."

"Very well: Mooswa, Muskwa, Rof, and myself--also Carcajou, for he has great knowledge of Man the Killer's ways."

"I should like to see the lodge when it is finished," whined Beaver, "but my short little fore-legs travel not overfast on land."

"So you shall, Comrade," growled Muskwa; "You may ride on my back."

"Or on my antlers," suggested Mooswa; "their bowl will be like a cradle for you."

"That's settled, then," declared Black Fox. "On the fourth round of the Sun we meet at François's Shack, in the safety time of the Forest, dawn hour; either that or dusk hour. What say you Brothers--which shall it be?"

"It would suit me better on account of my work," ventured Umisk, "to go at dusk hour. I have lost much time lately, and I'm building new lodges for my three-year-old Sons who are starting out for themselves this Fall."

"Don't be late, then--I go to bed at dusk," lisped Whisky-Jack, mincingly, for his tongue was wondrous sore. "I will take note of what the Men do in the meantime."

"And take care of us, O Wise Bird," sneered Pisew.

"Big-feet! Spear-ear! Herring-waist!" fairly screamed Jay, forgetting the sore tongue in his rage. "Before Winter is over, you'll be glad of Jack's advice, or I don't know François."

"The white of a Partridge egg is good for a burn," retorted Lynx. "Find one and cool your fevered tongue."

"Are not these wranglers just like Men, Carcajou?" remarked Mooswa. "If you all spent more time in lawful hunt for food you would be fatter. It will profit me more to browse in the Forest than listen to your frost-singed wit, so I leave you, Comrades."

"And I prefer even fat Frogs to hot fat Pork," said Pisew, maliciously, slinking like a shadow into the woods.

"'Fat Frogs,'" sneered Carcajou; "good enough for that smooth-faced Sneak--I hardly know what I'm going to have for dinner, though."

"Fat Birds are the thing to tickle my appetite," declared Black King. "It is coming the time of day for them to shove their heads under wing, too. I'm off--remember we meet on the Fourth day."

THE EXPLORATION OF CARCAJOU

At sunset on the Fourth day Black King and his party once more crouched in the willows at Red Stone Brook. François and his young friend were just putting some finishing touches to the Shack roof--placing the last earth sods on top of the poles, for it was a mud covering.

"It's nearly finished," whispered Jay.

"Strong Teeth! but that is funny," laughed Beaver.

"What is funny, Eater of Wood?" queried Jack.

"Why, the Man carries his trowel-tail in his front paws. I wish I could do that. I have to turn around to look when I'm doing a nice bit of plastering."

It was the Half-breed's spade that had drawn forth this remark.

"Yes," declared Whisky-Jack wisely, "one time the Men were like you--walked on four legs and used a trowel-tail for their building; now they stand upright, and have shed the trowel which they use in their hands."

"Wonderful!" soliloquized Umisk; "still they can't do as good work. Fat Poplar! but it's a poor Lodge. The only sensible thing about it is the mud roof."

François struck the clod sharply with his spade, settling it into place. "How clumsily the Man works," cried Beaver; "I'm glad my tail is where it is. What's that mud thing sticking up out of the corner, Jay? Is it a little lodge for the Kit-Man?"

"That's a chimney--part of the fire-trap," answered Jack.

"I know what that's like," asserted Carcajou. "I went down one once. The Trapper locked his door, thinking to keep me out while he rounded up his Traps. It's a splendid trail for getting in and out of a Shack. Why, I can carry a side of bacon up that hole--did it."

"Isn't The Boy lovely?" muttered Mooswa. "Isn't his call sweet? What does François name him, Jack--Man-Cub or Kit-Man?"

Just then the Half-breed sang out: "Rod, I t'ink me it's grub time--knock off. De ole s'ack s'e's finis'."

"Rod?" mused the Moose. "Yes, that is what the Factor used to call him. 'Rod! Rod!' he would shout, and The Boy would run with his little fat legs."

Rod and the Half-breed went inside, closed the door and lighted a candle, for it was growing dark, put a fire in the stove and cooked their supper.

The watchers, eager to see everything, edged cautiously up to the log walls. Space for a small window had been left by the builders, but the sash was not yet in place.

"I should like to see that mud-work the Man did with his hand-trowel," whispered Umisk.

"Climb on my horns, Little Brother," said Mooswa, softly, "and I will lift you up."

Beaver slipped around gently on the roof inspecting François's handicraft, while the others listened at the window.

"By Goss! Rod," said the Breed, "I put me leetle fire in de fire-place for dry dat c'imney, s'e's sof. De fros' spoil him when s'e's no dry."

"I believe they have made the chimney too small," muttered Carcajou. "I'm going up to have a look."

"To-mor' we put out dat Traps," remarked the Half-breed. "What you t'ink, Boy--I see me dat Black Fox yesterday."

"The Black Fox!" exclaimed his young companion, eagerly. "The beauty you spoke of as being in this part of the country?"

The King trembled. Already this terrible Trapper was on his trail.

"Yes; I know me where he have hes hole. I put dat number t'ree Otter Trap close by, cover him wit' leaves, an' put de fis'-head bait on top. Den we see. We keel plenty fur here dis Winter. Dere's big moose track too--mus' be bull."

Black King scratched Mooswa's fore-leg with a paw to draw his attention, but the latter had heard.

"I make some snare to-night, an' put him out wit' Castoreum. Dere's plenty Cat here."

Lynx shuddered.

"We must help each other," he whined, in a frightened voice.

Mooswa felt a little pat on his lofty horn, and looked up. "Lift me down, Brother," whispered Beaver.

"Where's Carcajou?" queried the King.

"Poking around the chimney--he made me nervous.

"Wuf!" sniffed Muskwa, gently. "Our Man burns the stink-weed in his mouth--it's horrible!" François was smoking.

"WUF!" SNIFFED MUSKWA, GENTLY. "OUR MAN BURNS THE STINK-WEED IN HIS MOUTH."

Carcajou was busy examining the mud-and-stick wall of the chimney, which stuck up three feet above the roof. "I'm sure they've made it too small," he muttered; "I'll never be able to get down. That will be too bad. By my Cunning! but I'd like to know for sure--I will!" For nothing on earth will satisfy a Wolverine's curiosity but complete investigation.

He gave a spring, grabbed the top of the chimney with his strong fore-legs, and pulled himself up. As he did so the soft mud collapsed and sank with a tremendous crash through the hole in the roof, carrying the reckless animal with it.

"Run for it!" commanded Black King, sharply; "that mischievous Devil has made a mess of the business."

"Whif! Wuf! Whiff!" grunted Bear, plunging through the thicket.

Black Fox melted silently into the Forest darkness as swiftly as a cloud-shadow crosses a sunlit plain.

Lynx gathered his sinewy legs and fairly spurned the earth in far-reaching bounds.

Beaver had been sitting curled up in the bowl of Mooswa's antlers, peeping in the window at the time of Carcajou's mishap. His quick brain took in the situation. Grasping the two strong front points, he squeaked, "Fly, Mooswa!"

"Sit tight, Little Brother!" admonished the Moose, putting his nose straight out and laying the horn-crown back over his withers, as he rushed with a peculiar side-wheel action, like a pacing-horse, from the clearing.

When the crash came François jumped to his feet in amazement. Before he could investigate the mass of mud upheaved, a small dark-brown body scuttled across the floor, clattered up the wall, and vanished through the open window.

The Breed jumped for the door, grabbing a gun as he went. Throwing it open he rushed out, but of course there was nothing in sight. Wolverine was busily engaged in working his short legs to their full capacity in an earnest endeavour to place considerable territory between himself and the treacherous Shack.

François came back grunting his dissatisfaction.

Rod stood in speechless amazement while his companion examined the pile of soft mud débris critically by the aid of a candle.

"I t'ought me dat!" he remarked, with satisfied conviction, straightening his back and setting the candle down on the rude plank table. "It's dat Debil of de Woods, Carcajou. Wait you, Mister Wolverine; François s'ow you some treek."

"What was he after?" queried The Boy.

"After for raise Ole Nick," declared the Half-breed, dejectedly. "You know what we mus' do? We mus' ketc' dat debil firs', or we keel no fur here. He steal de bait, an' cac'e de Trap; s'pose we go out from de S'ack, dat Carcajou come down de c'imney, tear up de clo'es, spill de farina--de flour, t'row de pot in de ribber, an' do ever' fool t'ing what you can t'ink. Never mind, I ketc' him, an' I keel him;" and François fairly danced a Red River jig in his rage.

Whisky-Jack had perched on the end of a roof-plate log when the trouble materialized, so he heard this tirade against Wolverine. The Bird could hardly go to sleep for chuckling. What a sweet revenge he would have next day; how he would revile Wolverine. Surely the unfortunate Carcajou had scorched his feet, and mayhap his back, when he fell in the fire-place. "I wonder whose toes are sore to-night," the Jay thought. "I hope he got a good singeing--meddling beast! Nice Lieutenant to upset everything just when we were having such a lovely time. Oh, but I'll rub it into him to-morrow."

THE SETTING OUT OF THE TRAPS

"Royal Son," said the Red Widow next morning, "what is the Burrow of the Men-Kind like?"

"Ask Carcajou when he comes, Mother," replied Black Fox; and he related the incident of the night before.

"Art sure, Son, that the Kit-Man's Mother is not with him?"

"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.

The Boy was filled with eager, joyous anticipation. During his school days in town he had thought and dreamed of the adventurous free life of a Fur Trapper in the great Spruce Forests of the North. That was chiefly because it was bred in the bone with him. He threw back to the forty years of his father's Factor-life as truly as an Indian retains the wild instinct of his forefathers, though he delve for half a lifetime in the civilization of the White Man.

"Here is de Marten tracks," cried François, stopping suddenly; and with precise celerity he built a little converging stockade by placing in the ground sharp-pointed sticks. In this he set a small steel Trap, covered it with leaves, and beyond placed the head of a fish.

"What's that track?" asked The Boy, as his companion stopped and looked at the trail of some big-footed creature.

"Cat," answered François; "dat's Mister Lynk. He like for smell some t'ing, so I give him Castoreum me for rub on hes nose--perhaps some necktie too."

"CAT," ANSWERED FRANÇOIS; "DAT'S MISTER LYNK."

He cut a stick four feet long and four inches thick, and to the middle of it fastened a running noose made from cod-line. Then building a stockade similar to the last, and placing a fish-head smeared with Castoreum inside, he bent down a small Poplar and from it suspended the noose covering the entrance to the stockade.

"Now, Mister Lynk he go for smell dat," explained François. "He put hes fat head t'rough dat noose; perhaps he don't get him out no more. By Goss! he silly; when dat string get tight he fight wid de stick, an' jump, and play de fool. De stick don't say not'ing, but jump too, of course, cause it loose, you see. If de stick be fas' den de Lynk break de string; but dis way dey fight, an' by an' by dat Lynk he dead for soor, I t'ink me."

"He has queer taste," said The Boy, "to risk his neck for that stuff--it's worse than a Skunk."

They moved on, and behind, quite out of sight, but examining each contrivance of the Trapper, came Black Fox, Muskwa, Blue Wolf, Mooswa, and Carcajou. Whisky-Jack was with them; now flying ahead to discover where the enemy were, now fluttering back with a dismal "Pee weep! Pee weep!" to report and rail at things generally.

Carcajou at times travelled on three legs. "Got a thorn in your foot?" queried the Jay? solicitously.

"Toes are cold," answered Wolverine, shortly.

"He-a-weep!" laughed Whisky-Jack, sneeringly; "they were hot enough last night, when you called on François through the chimney. Whose toes are sore to-day, Mister Carcajou? And the fur is burnt off your back--excuse me while I laugh;" and the Bird gave vent to a harsh, cackling chuckle.

"Hello!" Carcajou exclaimed, suddenly. "I smell Castoreum; or is it Sikak the Skunk?"

When they came to the Lynx Snare, almost immediately, he circled around gingerly in the snow, examining every bush, and stick, and semblance of track; then he peered into the little stockade. "It's all right!" he declared; "that François is a double-dealing Breed. I have known him set a Snare like this for Pisew, and a little to one side put a Number Four Steel Trap, nicely covered up, to catch an unsuspicious, simple-minded Wolverine."

"Why don't you also say honest, modest, Wolverine?" derided Whisky-Jack.

"But that's a Snare for Pisew, right enough," continued Carcajou.

"It is!" added Black Fox.

"Watch me spring it!" commanded Carcajou, tearing with his strong jaws and stronger feet at the fastening which held down the bent poplar. Swish! And the freed sapling shot into the air, dangling the cord like a hangman's noose invitingly before their eyes. "Now if any one wants the Fish-head, he may have it," he added.

"Not with Castoreum Sauce," said Black Fox. Even Blue Wolf turned his nose up at it.

"Well, I'll eat it myself," bravely remarked Wolverine, "for I'm hungry."

"You always are, 'Gulo the Glutton,' as Men call you," twittered Jay.

"I don't care for hot pork, though," retorted the other, making a grimace at the Bird.

"I believe they are heading for your house, Black Fox," remarked Rof, as they trudged on again.

"François is setting a Trap in the King's Palace--in the Court Yard," cried Whisky-Jack, fluttering back to meet them. Sure enough, as the friends crouched in a little coulee they could see the Half-breed covering up a "No. 3" directly in front of Fox's hole. Near the Trap François deposited two pieces of meat.

"If the Old Lady comes out she'll get her toes pinched," remarked Carcajou.

Black Fox laughed. "When François catches Mother, we all shall be very dead."

When the Trapper had gone, the Comrades drew close, and gingerly reconnoitred. "Only one Trap!" cried Carcajou; "this is too easy." Cautiously fishing about in the snow he found a chain; pulling the Trap out, he gave it a yank--something touched the centre-plate, and it went off with a vicious snap that made their hearts jump.

"Is the Bait all right, Whisky-Jack," asked Black King. "Was there any talk of White Powder?"

"There's nothing in it," replied the Bird; "I saw them cut the Meat."

"Well, Jack and I will eat one piece; there's a piece for you, Rof. In this year of scarce food even the Death Bait is acceptable--though it's but a tooth-full. Are you hungry, Muskwa?"

"No; I am sleepy. I think I'll go to bed to-morrow for all Winter. You fellows have kept me up too late now."

"Give me a paw to break the ice in the stream, Muskwa--I'm going to cache this Trap," said Carcajou.

"All right," yawned Bear; "I can hardly keep my eyes open. I'm afraid my liver is out of order."

"Shouldn't eat so much," piped Whisky-Jack.

Muskwa slouched down to the river; Wolverine grabbed up the Trap in his strong jaws and followed. Bruin scraped the snow to one side deftly, uncovering a patch of the young ice, and two or three powerful blows from his mighty paw soon shivered a hole in it. Carcajou dropped the Trap through, saying, "It will close over to-night, and to-morrow perhaps the wind will cover it with snow."

The King looked on admiringly.

"Bra-vo! br-a-a-vo!" growled Blue Wolf. "I might have put my foot in that when I came to visit the Widow."

And so all day the conspirators followed François and The Boy, undoing their work.

To Muskwa's horror, near the nest he had prepared for his long Winter's rest they found a huge Bear Trap. At sight of its yawning jaws drops of perspiration dripped from Bruin's tongue. "Sweet Sleep! what should I do if I were to put a leg in that awful thing--it would crack the bone, I believe. Who in the name of Forest Fools told François where my house was?"

"Whisky-Jack, likely," snapped Carcajou, malignantly.

"Not I," declared Jay--"I swear it! I keep the Law. What evil I've got to say of any one, I say to his face; I'm no traitor. You're a thief, Carcajou--your ears were cut off for stealing! Your head's as smooth as a Bird's egg, and you're a quarrelsome Blackguard--but did I ever accuse you of betraying our Comrades?"

"Never mind, Sweet Singer," answered Wolverine, apologetically, "I didn't mean it. Nobody told François; it was your own big feet, Muskwa. If you weren't half asleep you'd know that you left a trail like the passing of Train Dogs."

"How shall we spring the Trap?" asked Bear.

"Don't touch it," commanded Carcajou. "Just leave it, and François will spend many days waiting for your thick fur."

"But if I 'hole-up' here the Man will break into my house and kill me while I sleep."

"How can he find you?" asked Jack, incredulously. "It's going to snow again, you'll be all covered up deep and he'll never know where you are."

"Won't he, Little Brother? Man is not so stupid. How do you suppose I breathe? There'll be a little hole right up through the snow, all yellow about the edges, and François will find that; also, if there's frost in the air, see my breath. No; I've got to make another nest now. I should have turned in before the snow fell, then I'd have been all right."

"We'll help you fix a new house," said Black King; "but you had better wait--perhaps this snow will go away; then there will be no tracks to lead Trappers to your nest. It is really too bad to keep you up when you are so sleepy, but it's the only way."

"And to think how I worked over it," lamented Muskwa. "For a week I carried sticks until my arms ached; and scraped up leaves, and spruce boughs, and soft moss, until my hands were sore. It would have been the finest 'hole-up' of any Bear within the Boundaries. Umisk boasts about his old Mud Lodge, with the lower floor all flooded with water--it's enough to give one rheumatism. New Ant Hills! I shouldn't like to live in a cold, cheerless place like that. If I had just pulled all that nice warm covering over me before the snow fell, I should have been as comfortable as little Gopher in his hole. It's too bad!"

"I'll tell you what we will do, Muskwa," said Black King; "we'll ask the Old Lady about this thing. You wouldn't mind a nice dry hole in a cut-bank somewhere, would you--if the snow lasts and you can't make another nest? She knows all the empty houses from Athabasca to Peel River. I am in the same fix myself, for the family are moving to-day--though we have lived in our present quarters for a matter of four years."

"That's a King for you!" cried Whisky-Jack. "He's like a Father to us," concurred Blue Wolf.

"Now we'll go back," ordered Black Fox; "the Man has set all his Traps. See! here's the mark of an empty bag on the snow. If you discover anything new, come to the big dead Cottonwood--the one that was struck by storm-fire--at Two Rapids, and give the Boundary Call. I don't want you making a trail up to our new house for François to follow."

THE OTTER SLIDE

For the next few days François was busy completing his Marten Road, quite unconscious of the undoing that followed him. Fifteen miles out he constructed a small rest-house that would do for a night's camping; thus he could go the round of his Traps nicely in two days. The People of the Boundaries watched him, and where they found a Trap, sprang it and stole the Bait. He fixed up the chimney that had suffered from Carcajou's diabolical curiosity. Winter had properly set in; streams were frozen up, the ground covered with snow, and the days were of scarce more length than a long drawn out forenoon. Affairs were in this state when one morning the Red Widow heard Beaver's plaintive whistle from the Cottonwood.

"Son," she cried to Black Fox, "Umisk calls; something has gone wrong in the Forest." The King turned over, stretched his sinewy legs, and yawned; the sharp-pointed, blood-red tongue curled against the roof of his mouth, and the strong teeth gleamed white against the background of his lacquer coat. It was a full-drawn, lazy protest against being roused from slumber, for a brace of Pin-tail Grouse lying in the corner of his cave gave evidence of much energy during the previous night.

"Bother this being King!" he yapped crabbedly. "To take care of one's own relatives is trouble enough. By the Howl of a Hungry Wolf! I saved Stripes from a Trap yesterday--just in the nick of time to keep him from grabbing the Bait. Now Trowel Tail is after me. This place was bad enough when there were only Animals here--I mean Animals of our own knowing, Mother; now that this other kind of Animal, Man, has come, it's simply awful. They must be a bad lot, these Men. We fear Wolf when he is hungry, and Muskwa when there are no Berries, but Man is always crying, 'E-go, Kil-l--Kil-l!'"

Again Umisk's shrill little treble cut the keen frosty air. "Hurry, Lad!" cried the Widow; "likely his family is in trouble."

Black Fox stuck his head cautiously from the entrance to their Burrow, and peered through the massive drapery of Birch-tree roots which completely veiled that part of the cut-bank. "Mother," he said, "make the Boys use the log-path when they're coming home, or François will hole us up one of these fine days."

"I have told them, Son; your two Brothers were cross-hatching the trail all yesterday afternoon. There are three blind holes within five miles up the stream, and to each one they have made a nice little false trail to amuse this Stealer of Skins."

"That's all right, Mother; we can't be too careful."

He stretched each hind-leg far out, throwing his head high to loosen the neck-muscles and expand his chest, shook the folds of his heavy, black cloak and yawned again. Then stooping low in the cave-mouth, with a powerful spring he alighted upon a log which crossed from one cut-bank to another of the stream. Umisk was whistling a quarter of a mile away down the left bank, but Black Fox started off up the right. As he trotted along he sang:--

"The trail that leads from nowhere to nowhere,

Is the track of the King of the Tribe of Beware."

Suddenly he stopped, crept under a big log, and then emerged, tail first, backing up cautiously and putting his feet down carefully in the tracks he had made. "They'll find me asleep in there," he chuckled; and hummed, softly:--

"Under the log the King is asleep;

Creep gently, Brother, creep;

Under the log is the old Fox nest;

Creep, Brother--mind his rest."

Suddenly jumping sideways over a great Spruce lying prone on the ground, he started off again, singing merrily:--

"The track that breaks

Is a new track made;

For eyes are sharp

Where the nose is dead."

Down the stream, below where Umisk was waiting, Black King crossed, saying to himself: "Now, François, when I go home the trail will be complete, with no little break at my front door--dear François, sweet François."

With Umisk was Carcajou waiting for the King.

"What's up?" asked Black Fox.

"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?"

"I don't know; there is something the matter with my Slide. It isn't as I left it yesterday."

"Birds of a Feather! Birds of a Feather!" screamed Whisky-Jack, fluttering to a limb over their heads. "What's the caucus about this morning--discussing chances of a breakfast this year of starvation and scarcity of Wapoos? Mild Winter! but I had a big feed. The Boy no more knows the value of food than he knows the depravity of Carcajou's mind."

"Great hand for throwing away hot pork, isn't he, Jack?" asked Wolverine, innocently.

The Jay blinked his round bead-eyes, snapped his beak, and retorted: "They put in their evenings laughing over the roasting you got when you dropped into the fire."

"Where's François, Babbler?" asked the King.

"Gone out to bring in Deer Meat."

"Did he make a Kill?"

"U-h-huh! my crop is full."

"You horrid Beast!" cried Carcajou, disgustedly. "Where is it cached?"

"Not Mooswa?" broke in Black King, with a frightened voice.

"No--Caribou. Such a big shovel to his horn too--must have been of the Knowledge Age. Ugh! should have known better than to let a Man get near him. Of course François stuck the head on a tree to make peace with Manitou, and I'm fixed for a month."

"Cannibal!" again exclaimed Carcajou. "Where did you say your friend, Murderer, had cached the quarters?"

"'Cannibal,' eh? Go and find out, Glutton. Be careful, though--I saw some one handling the White Medicine last night."

"The White Medicine!" ejaculated Black Fox, turning with dismay to the speaker.

"Uh, huh! but I never steal the Bait, like Carcajou, so I don't care. I eat what the Men eat."

"What they leave, you mean, Scavenger--what they throw to the Dogs!" retorted the Lieutenant.

"You'll get enough of Dogs, First-Cousin-to-Ground Hog--François says he is going to have a train of them. They will squeeze your fat back if you come prowling about the Shack to steal food."

"Dogs," growled Blue Wolf, coming into the circle,--"who's got Dogs?"

"You'll have them--on your back, presently," snapped the Jay. "Saw you sniffing around there last night. If your jaws were as long as your scent you would have had that leg off the roof, eh, Rof? Burnt Feathers! but I smell something," he continued; "has any one found a Castoreum Bait, and got it in his pocket? I don't mean you, Beaver, you don't smell very bad. Oh! here you are, Sikak; it's you--I might have known what sweet Forest Flower had cut loose from its stalk. Have you been rolling in the dead Rose leaves this morning, my lover of Perfume?"

The white-striped Skunk pattered with quick, mincing little steps into the group, his back humped up and his terrible tail carried high, ready to resent any insult.

"Smothered anybody this morning, Sikak?" asked the Bird.

A laugh went round the circle at this sally of Jack's; for Skunk's method of fighting did not meet with universal approval. Blue Wolf thought Sikak was a good piece of meat clean thrown away. When hungry he could manage Badger, or even Porcupine; but Skunk! "Ur-r-r, agh!" it turned his stomach to think of the dose he had received once when he tried it.

"Good-morning, Your Majesty!" said Lynx, as he arrived shortly after Skunk.

"How is everybody up your way?" queried Jack. "How are all the young Wapooses?"

Lynx grinned deprecatingly.

"Pisew is not likely to forget the Law of the Seventh Year," remarked Carcajou, with a sinister expression, "so he is not so deeply interested in young Wapoos as he used to be."

"What is the meeting for?" asked Lynx.

"François has been visiting the pond of our little Comrade, Umisk," replied Black King.

"And has been at my Slide, too," declared Otter.

"Well, Comrades, we had better go with Nekik and examine into this thing," commanded the King.

"Oh, of course!" cried Jack; "every community must have Fishery Laws, and have its Fisheries protected."

The Otter slide was exactly like a boy's coasting chute on a hill. A smooth, iced trough ran down the snow-covered bank, a matter of fifteen feet, to the stream's edge, ending in an ice hole that Otter managed to keep open all Winter. Generally speaking, it was Nekik's entrance to his river-home, and in the event of danger demanding a quick disappearance, he could shoot down it into the water like a bullet. It was also a play-ground for Otter's family; their favourite pastime being to glide helter-skelter down the chute and splash into the stream.

"What's wrong with it?" asked Black Fox. "There's a nasty odour of Man about, I admit, but your Slide seems all clear and smooth."

"Something's been changed. I had a little drop put in the centre for the Youngsters, and they liked it--thought it was like falling off a bank, you know; now that part is filled up nearly level, you see. I don't know what is in it--was afraid to look; but expect François has set a Trap there."

"I'll find out," said Carcajou. "These Traps all work from the top--I've discovered that much. If you keep walking about, you're pretty sure to get into one of them; but if you sit down and think, and scrape sideways a bit, you'll get hold of something that won't go off." Talking thus, he dug with his strong claws at the edge of the Slide. "I thought so!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Here's a ring around a stake--I know what that means!"

Feeling cautiously for the chain, he presently pulled out a No. 3 steel Trap. With notched jaws wide open, and tip-plate holding its flat surface up inviting the loosening pressure, it was a vicious-looking affair.

"Let me spring it," said Wolf; "I'm used to them." Grabbing the chain end in his teeth, he threw the Trap over his head as a dog does a bone in play, and when it came down the sides clanged together with hurried fondness.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" whistled Otter. "Something told me not to go down that Slide. I felt it in my bones."

"You'd have felt it on your bones," piped Jay, ironically, "if you had slid your fat belly over that Trap."

"Oh, I'm just dying for a slide and a bath," continued Nekik--"here goes!"

"Wait a bit!" commanded Carcajou, grabbing him by the shoulder, "don't be too eager. That isn't François's Lucky Trap. If he has discovered your front stream, you can just depend upon it his Lucky Trap is laid away somewhere for you--it's got two red bands painted on the springs."

As these words of wisdom fell from Carcajou's lips his Comrades gathered their feet more closely under them, and searched the surrounding territory apprehensively with their eyes.

"Where will it be?" cried Nekik, distressedly.

"In the water!" answered Carcajou, with brief decision.

"Dreadful!" whimpered Otter.

"François is a heartless wretch!" declared Beaver. "He tried to play that trick on me once."

"Where was that, Paddle-tail?" queried Jack, who was always eager for a bit of gossip.

"It was when I lived up on Pembina River. You know the way with us Beavers--we always take a month or two of holiday every Summer, and visit our Friends. It was in June--I remember; I opened the Lodge to let it air, and started down stream with my whole family. Of course we passed many Beaver-roads running to the river, and when we thought they belonged to friends we'd pull out and go up on the bank. Carcajou, you know the little round bowl of mud we Beaver leave on our river-roads for visitors' cards?"

"Yes," replied Wolverine; "they're a rather good idea. You always know just who has passed, don't you?"

"Yes, we can tell, generally. Well, as I was saying, we went up the bank in one of these Roads, and by the odour of the little clay mound I knew that Red Jowl, a cousin of mine, was just inside the Wood--or had been. So the family went among the Poplars to have a bite of bread; and just as we were felling a tree whom should I see but François drifting down the river in his canoe; we kept pretty close, you had better believe."

"Didn't call out to him, Umisk, eh?" asked Jay--"didn't clap each other on the back with your tails and say, 'Here comes a Chum.'"

Umisk proceeded, paying no attention to the flippant Bird. "When the Breed came opposite our Road he stopped his canoe, let it drift gently up to the bank, pulled out a Trap and set it in muddy water just at the foot of the path. He was clever enough not to touch the land even with his paddle, so there was no scent--nothing to warn a poor Beaver of the danger. Then he floated on down. If I had not seen the whole thing this depraved taker of our lives would have caught me sure; for you know how we go into the water, Nekik, just as you do--head and hands first."

"That's an old trick of François's," exclaimed Carcajou; "and you'll find that is just what he has done here. If Mister Nekik will feel cautiously at the foot of his Slide he will find something hard and smooth, not at all like a stick or a stone."

"Fat Fish! but I'm afraid of my fingers," whistled Otter.

"Sure, if you work from the top," retorted Carcajou. "Sideways is the game with the Trap always--or upward."

"You forgot that, Mister Carcajou, when you tackled the Chimney," twittered Jay.

"I didn't burn my tongue, anyway."

"Is Nekik afraid to safeguard his own Slide," sneered Whisky-Jack.

"Shut up, Quarrel Maker!" interposed the King, "you know Otter is one of the pluckiest fighters inside the Boundaries. It's only brainless Animals who tackle things they know nothing about."

"Dive their beaks into hot Pork, your Most Wise Majesty," echoed Lynx, with a fawning smile.

"Here's Sakwasew, he'll find the Trap, he's a water dweller," exclaimed Carcajou, as Mink, attracted by their chatter, came wandering down the stream. "Here, little Black-tail," he continued, "just dip down the hole there and look for evidence of François's deviltry."

"It's against the Law of the Boundaries," pleaded Mink, "for me to use Otter's ice hole. By the Kink in my Tail, I'm not like some of my Comrades, always breaking the laws."

"Aren't you, Mink? Who cut the throats of Gray Hen, the Grouse's, Children, last July, when they were still in their pin-feathers? But I suppose that isn't breaking the Law of the Boundaries," cried Lynx, taking Mink's observation to himself.

"Oh, no," chipped in Whisky-Jack; "certain of you Animals think keeping the Law is not getting caught. My own opinion is, you're as bad as Men. When François puts out the White Death-powder, he thinks he is keeping Man's law if the Red Coats do not catch him; and Sakwasew cuts the throat of Chick-Grouse, and you, Pisew, eat Kit Beaver, and it's all within the Law if there be no witnesses. I don't know what we are coming to."

"Stop wrangling, you Subjects!" commanded Black King; and the silvered fur on his back stood straight up in anger. "I'll order Rof to thrash you soundly, if you don't stop this."

Pisew slunk tremblingly behind a tree, and Carcajou, humping his back, exclaimed: "Brother Nekik, I'll fish out that Trap for you; I'm sure it's there--my good nose lines the track of a Man straight to the hole." In less than two minutes he triumphantly swung a steel-jawed thing up on the bank. "There, what did I tell you!" he boasted proudly. "But the ring is on a stout root or stick--cut it off, Umisk, with your strong chisel-teeth, and Fisher will carry it up that big hollow Poplar and cache it in a hole."

"I will, if you spring the jaws first," agreed Fisher.

Otter was overjoyed. "This is fine!" he cried; "I'll be back in a minute!" and he darted down the Slide as an Indian throws the snake-stick over the snow.

"What fine sport!" remarked Carcajou, when Nekik came up again, shaking the water from his strong, bristled mustache.

"Shall we have some games?" suggested the King. "I'll give a fat Pheasant to the one who slides down Nekik's chute best--that is, of course, barring Nekik himself."

"But the water, Your Majesty!" interposed Pisew.

"I don't want to wet my feet," pleaded Wapistan, the Marten; "if you'll make the race up a tree I will willingly join."

"So will I!" concurred Fisher.

"Or three miles straight over the hill," suggested Blue Wolf.

"Make it a wrestling match!" said Carcajou.

"No, no," declared Black King. "No one need go in the hole, of course. When you come to the bottom, spring over to the ice--that will be part of the game."

After much wrangling and discussion they all agreed to try it. Mink went first, being more familiar with slides, for he had a little one of his own. He did it rather nicely, but forgetting to jump at the bottom, dove into the water.

"That rules you out!" decided the King. "You left the course, you see. Go on, Rof!"

Blue Wolf fixed himself gingerly at the upper end of the Slide, and, at the last minute, decided to take it sitting, riding down on his great haunches. This worked first-rate, until the ice was reached. Rof was going with so much speed by this time, that he couldn't gather for a spring; his hind quarters slipped through the hole, which, being just about his size, caused him to wedge tight. He gave a roar of surprise that made the woods ring, for the stream was icy cold. "Keep your nose above water or you'll drown, old Bow-wow," piped Jay.

ROF WAS GOING WITH SO MUCH SPEED, ... THAT HE COULDN'T GATHER FOR A SPRING.

It took the combined strength of Beaver and Carcajou to pull the grumbling animal out. "By the White Spot on my Tail," laughed Black King, "but I thought for a time you were going to win. Your turn, Pisew." Lynx made a grimace of dislike, for his cat nature revolted at the thought of water, but he crept on to the slide with nervous steps.

"You won't get in the hole," jeered Jack; "your feet are too big."

Pisew tried it standing up, with arched back, just for all the world like a cat on a garden fence. As he neared the bottom at lightning speed, confusion seized him; he tried to spring, but only succeeded in throwing a half somersault, and plunged head first into the water. The Jay fairly screamed with delight, and hopped about on his perch overhead in a perfect ecstasy of fiendish enjoyment. "Didn't scorch his tongue a bit!" he cried. "Give him the tail feathers of the Pheasant to dry his face with, oh, Your Majesty! Ha, ha, ha! Pe-he-e-e!" Pisew scrambled out filled with morose anger.

"That's another failure," adjudged the King. "Who is next?"

"Carcajou's turn!" instigated Whisky-Jack. "He knows all about sliding up and down chimneys--he'll win, sure!"

"I will try it," grunted the fat, little Chap; "but if you make fun of me, Jack, I'll wring your neck first chance I get."

Wolverine shuffled clumsily to the starting post, studied the Slide critically for a minute with his little snake-like eyes, then deliberately turned over on his back, and prepared for the descent.

"Tuck in your ears!" shouted Whisky Jack. Now this was an insult. Carcajou's ears were so very short that they were generally supposed to have been cut off for stealing. However, Wolverine started, tail first, holding his head up between his fore-paws to judge distances. When he struck the bottom, his powerful hind-feet jammed into the snow, and the speed of his going threw him safely over on the ice, landing him right side up on all-fours.

"Capital! Capital!" yapped Black King, patting his furred hands together in approval. "That will be pretty hard to beat. Skunk, you're a clever little Fellow, see if you can make a tie of it with Carcajou." Sikak moved up to the Slide with a peculiar rocking-horse-like gallop. Taking his cue from Carcajou he decided to go down the same way. Now, in the excitement of the thing the animals had gathered close to the Slide, lining it on both sides.

"Cranky little White-streak!" exclaimed Whisky-Jack; "why don't you make a speech before you start."

Skunk had never travelled in this shape before, and was nervous. During his delay over getting a straight start, Carcajou and Mink, half-way down, got into an altercation about a good seat that each claimed.

"Keep it, then, Glutton!" whined Sakwasew, starting across the chute. As he did so, Skunk got away rather prematurely, coming down with the speed of a snow-slide off a roof. He struck Mink full amidship, and thinking it was a diabolical trick on the part of the others, developed an angry odour that would have put a Lyddite shell to shame.

A wild scramble took place.

"Fat Hens!" shrieked Black King, as he fled through the Forest, his long brush trailing in the snow.

"I'm choking!" screamed Carcajou. "By the power of all Forest Smells, was there ever such a disgraceful Chap on the face of the Earth;" and he scurried away with his short legs, just for all the world like a Bear Cub.

Fisher climbed a tree in hot haste, as did Marten. Mink dove in the Otter's hole and disappeared; but with him he carried the evil thing, for he was full of the blue halo that vibrated from his skunk-smirched coat. "I shall never be able to go home any more," he moaned; "my relatives will kill me."

Even Jay clasped one claw over his nose and flew wildly through the forest, almost knocking out his brains against branches. In ten seconds there was nobody left on the ground but Otter and poor little white-striped Skunk. The collision had sent him rolling over and over down to the ice bottom of the stream. He got up, shook himself, used some very bad animal language, and slunk away to his family, to tell them of the trick Carcajou and Mink had played him.

"That Glutton was afraid I'd win the Pheasant," he confided to Mrs. Sikak; "but I broke up the party, anyway."

Otter was wandering about disconsolately through the woods, declaiming to the trees that his Slide was ruined for all time to come, and he really wished the Trap had ended his days.

THE TRAPPING OF WOLVERINE

When François missed the Beaver trap that had been placed in the dam, and that Umisk had taken for his sons to study, also the two set on Otter's slide, it made him furious. He knew Wolverine must have cached them. Once before he had been forced to give up a good Marten Road because of the relentless ingenuity of this almost human-brained animal; but it would be different this time, the Half-breed declared--he would make a fight of it.

"I keel me dat Carcajou!" he exclaimed emphatically over and over again to The Boy. "Dat Debil ob de Wood he eat my bait, an' cac'e de Trap, an' come an' sit dere by de door an' listen what we talk. I see de track dis mornin'."

The very night François made this boast, Wolverine came and entirely appropriated the remaining hind-quarter of his Caribou from the roof. When the Half-breed discovered this fresh mark of his enemy's energetic attention he became inarticulate with ire.

"Why don't you try the strychnine on him?" asked Roderick.

"Dat no use," declared the enraged Trapper; "when I put poison in de bait, Carcajou come, smell him, den he do some dirty trick on it for make me swear. But I catc' him soor--I put de gun wid pull-string."

He spent the greater part of the next day arranging a muzzle-loading shot gun, with a trade ball in it, for the destruction of the animal who had stolen his venison. François had seen Wolverine's own private little path for coming up the bank of the Pelican, and on this he staked down the gun and put some pine logs on either side, so that Carcajou must take the bait from in front. The gun was left cocked, with a string attached to the trigger; on the string, just at the muzzle, was tied a piece of Caribou meat.

Wolverine chuckled when he saw the arrangement. "Poor old François!" he muttered ironically: "this is really too bad; it's actual robbery to take that Bait--it's so easy."

Now this little wood-dweller had a most decided streak of vanity in his make-up. Like many really smart men, he liked to show off his cunning--that was his weakness. "This is a good chance to give some of the others an object lesson," he said to himself, sitting down to wait for an audience. Presently Blue Wolf and Lynx came in sight, jogging along together. "Eur-r-r-r!" said Wolf, hoarsely; "had any Eating this day, Gulo?"

"No appetite," declared Carcajou, getting up so the half-starved Lynx might see his well-rounded stomach.

"Most wise Lieutenant," smirked Pisew, "what wisdom hast thou originated this day?"

"That's a queer thing, isn't it?" remarked Carcajou, nodding his broad forehead towards the baited gun.

Blue Wolf looked, took a wide detour, and approached it from the side. The others followed in his footsteps.

"Years have given you sagacity, Mister Rof," commended Wolverine. "From the side always, eh? Danger sits on top, and Death waits in front."

"My nose finds a Bait!" answered Wolf.

"It's Meat!" added Pisew, working his mustached upper lip like a cat.

"I smell powder!" declared Carcajou, quietly.

"The evil breath of the Ironstick?" queried Blue Wolf. "Perhaps the White Death-powder makes that peculiar odour," he hazarded.

"No," asserted Carcajou; "François knows better than that: to smell that Bait costs nothing; to bite it makes a heavier price than either of us cares to pay. François knows that we smell first, and bite last; and if our noses detected aught amiss would we pull the string with our teeth?"

"Wise Lieutenant!" murmured Lynx.

"Cunning old Thief!" mused Wolf to himself.

"Do either of you food-hunters want it?" asked Carcajou.

"I'm not very hungry this morning," answered Blue Wolf.

"I discovered seven Deer Mice under a log not two hours ago," lied Pisew; "sweet, long-eared little Chaps they were, and quite fat from eating the seeds of the yellow-lipped Sunflower--most delicious flavour it gives to their flesh. My stomach is at peace for the first time in many days."

"Keep your eye open for the Breed-Man, then," commanded Wolverine; "I think I'd relish that Caribou steak--your Deer-Mice have given me an appetite." He tore the pine logs away from one side of the gun, examined the string critically, cut it with his sharp teeth just behind the bait, and devoured the fresh meat with great gusto, smacking his lips with a tantalizing suggestiveness of good fare.

"In case of accidents I think I'd better break up this Ironstick," he said. Seizing the hammer in his strong jaws, and placing his paws on the barrel and stock, he tore it off and completely demolished the old muzzle-loader.

"Well," yawned Wolf, stretching himself, "you're a match for the Man, I believe. I'm off, for I've got a long run ahead of me--the Pack gathers to-night at Deep Creek."

"What's the run--Stag?" asked Pisew, insinuatingly.

"Whatever it may be it will be all eaten," answered Rof; "so you needn't trail. Good-bye, Lieutenant," he barked, loping with powerful strides through the woods out of sight.

"I'll go with you, most wise Lieutenant," declared Pisew.

"Well, trot along in front," grunted Carcajou; "I want to fix the trail a bit." After they had walked for half an hour Wolverine stopped, and, cocking his eye up a slim pole which seemed to grow from the centre of a high Spruce stump, exclaimed, "Great-Eating! what in the name of Wiesahkechack is that?"

"Meat!" answered Pisew, looking at something which dangled from the top of the pole.

"It's François again," said Carcajou, sniffing at the stump.

"What a splendid cache," cried Lynx, admiringly; "nobody but Squirrel could climb that pole."

"But they might knock it down," declared Carcajou. "I have a notion to try."

"Better leave it alone," advised Pisew. "If it's François, there's something wrong."

"Carcajou doesn't take advice from a cotton-headed Cat," sneered the other. "Easy Killing! but I'm going up to see what it's like. I know that stump--it's hollow; there is no chance for a Trap there." It was about three feet high. Wolverine made a running jump, grabbing the top edge to pull himself up; as he did so something snapped. A howl of enraged surprise came from the little animal as he dangled with hind toes just touching the ground, and his fore-paws in a steel Trap which he had pulled over the side. The cunning Breed had blocked up his Trap on the inside of the hollow shell, where it was invisible from the ground.

"For the Sake of Security! don't make such a noise," pleaded Pisew.

"Fool-talker!" retorted Carcajou; "come and help me out of this fix."

"I can't open the Trap," objected Lynx; "why, it would take the strength of Muskwa to flatten its springs."

"Run to the King and ask for help, as is the law of the Boundaries," ordered Wolverine.

"Gently, Mister Lieutenant, gently; don't get so excited--keep cool."

"Wait till I get out of this," screamed Carcajou; "I'll warm your jacket."

"There, there," returned Lynx, "don't threaten me--don't abuse me, and I'll help you--"

"That's a good Pisew--hurry, please--François may come--"

"On one condition," added Lynx, sitting down on his haunches with deliberate self-possession.

"Hang the conditions!" blustered Carcajou--"talk of conditions with a Fellow's fingers in a steel Trap!"

"All the same, I'll only do it on one condition--when they talked the other day of making me King--"

"'They talked,'" interrupted Carcajou; "nobody talked of making you King."

"You didn't, I know, Lieutenant; but that's just what I want you to promise now, before I help you."

"I'll see you Snared first!" grunted Wolverine, snapping at the Trap chain which was fastened to the pole, until he screamed with pain.

"All right--I'm off! François will soon find you," declared Pisew.

"Come back!" cried the entrapped Animal. "What do you wish?"

"Well, if anything happens Black King, we'll need another ruler--anyway, next year there'll be an election, and I want you to stick up for me as you did for Black Fox. You're so wise and eloquent, dear Carcajou, that the others will do just as you advise. I could make it worth while, too, if there were any charges against you; suppose some one accused you unjustly of having eaten a Cub or a Kit under the Killing Age, why, I could see that nothing happened, you know."

"Sneak! Thief! Murderer!" ejaculated Carcajou disdainfully. "If I could but get out of this fix, I'd eat you."

"What's the row, you Fellows?" piped a bird-voice, as Whisky-Jack swooped down to a small Poplar, and craned his neck in amazement at the sight he beheld. "By my Lonely Life!" he chuckled, "if here isn't the King of all Knaves sitting with his hands in the stocks. Great Rations! but you're a wise one; whose toes hurt now, Mister Mocker? Why doesn't that cat-faced Lynx help you out?"

"I offered to," declared Pisew, "but his temper is so vile I dare not touch him. He threatened to kill me--I'm afraid to go near him."

"Why don't you run to Black King for help, you stupid--you can't open that Trap."

"Wise Bird," almost sobbed Carcajou, in his gratitude, "this scheming rascal took advantage of my misfortune, and tried to make me promise to do something for him, or he would let François catch me."

"Pisew is not to be trusted--he is too much like a Man," asserted Jack. Turning to the Lynx, he exclaimed, angrily: "You go on the back-trail there, and if François comes, lead him off slowly; just keep in his sight--he'll follow you. I will get the Lieutenant out of this. Mind, if you play any tricks, or break the Oath of the Boundaries, the King will command Blue Wolf to break your back--he'll do it too. I'm off for help," he said to the prisoner; "just keep your courage up, old Carey;" and working his fan-like wings with exceeding diligence, he dove through the woods at a great rate toward the King's Burrow.

"I was only joking, dear friend Carcajou," said Lynx, fawningly, for he dreaded the anger of the other animals. "Don't say a word about it to the King; he might think I was in earnest."

"Traitor!" snarled Wolverine; "go back and watch for François."

"Don't say any more about it," pleaded Pisew, "and I'll watch, oh, so carefully, most loyal, true Lieutenant."

Whisky-Jack's shrill call from a tree startled the family of the Red Widow.

"Quick, Royal Son," she cried, "there's a danger signal. Listen: 'Hee-e-e-p, hee-e-ep, he-e-e-ep!' That means some one caught. Where are my Sons? All here but Stripes, Goodness!" She wrung her paws miserably, and in her eagerness rushed to the door. "What is it, Bringer of Evil News? Who's caught--not my Baby Cub?" she asked of Whisky-Jack.

"No, Good Dame. Would you believe it, the cleverest one in all the Boundaries, excepting your Son, is now keeping the jaws of a Trap apart with his own soft paws--it's Carcajou."

"What's to do?" cried Black Fox, joining his Mother.

"Carcajou is caught!" she answered, heaving a sigh of relief that it wasn't Cross-stripes.

Jay Bird explained the situation.

"Nobody but Muskwa can spring a Number Four Trap," asserted the King; "and he is holed up these two days--isn't he, Mother?"

"Yes," she assented. "And asleep by now. You will find him at the big Burrow that is in the fourth cut-bank from here up stream."

"The old Chap must get up, then," cried Black Fox, with emphasis, "for he is not in the deep frost-sleep yet. Here, Jack, run and bring Beaver to cut off the pole Carcajou's Trap is ringed to, and I'll go for Muskwa; if you see Rof, tell him to meet me at Bear's Burrow."

The King had a tremendous time with Muskwa. Bruin was sleepy and cranky. "Quick! wake up, Brother!" Black Fox shouted in his ear. The Bear never moved--simply snored.

The energetic visitor turned tail on, and proceeded to rake Bruin's ribs with his strong hind feet as a dog makes the gravel fly. Muskwa grunted and simply flicked his short, woolly ears. The King jumped on him, set up the long howl of the Kill in his very face, put his sharp teeth through one of the nerveless ears, and generally held a small riot over the sleeper. He never would have managed to wake Bear had not Blue Wolf arrived to help him.

Muskwa was for all the world like a maudlin, drunken old sailor. "All right, you Fellows," he said groggily, his eyes still closed, "I don't want any more Berries--eat 'em yourself."

"Not Berries!" howled Wolf; "Carcajou is in a Trap."

"Go 'way--don't believe it. Carcajou's an old Sweep!"

Blue Wolf's powerful voice rang the Chase Note in Muskwa's ear. It woke the big fellow sufficiently to enable him to take a side-hook sweep at the offender with his disengaged paw. The blow was a sleepy one, else it had cracked his tormentor's skull.

"He's coming all right," remarked the King, critically.

"By the Flavour of Meat, he is!" ejaculated Rof.

In the end they got Muskwa on his feet, with a little understanding in his stupor-clogged brain, and half-pushing, half-leading, conducted him to where Carcajou was sitting in the stocks. In his flight Whisky-Jack had met Mooswa, and he was there also. Beaver was chiselling away at the pole; for once loosened, even if they could not spring the Trap sufficiently to get Carcajou's paws out, between them they might manage to get him away and cached somewhere; anything was better than letting him fall into the Trapper's hands.

"Of all the wood I ever cut this is the worst," panted Umisk, resting for a minute. "It cramps my neck cutting down so close sideways. It is dry Tamarack, the slivers are all sticking in my tongue."

As Black Fox and Rof withdrew their paws from under Muskwa's arms, he keeled over lazily and went sound asleep in two seconds. "Give him a good lift with your hind-foot, Mooswa," commanded the King, sharply. "Of all the heavy-brained Animals I ever saw!"

"If we but had some of Man's fire," opined Jack, "we could wake him up quick enough by singeing a couple of my feathers under his nose."

Mooswa planted both hind-feet, bang! in Bear's ribs; Rof gave a deep bay in his face; Black King once more put his saw-like teeth through an ear; and by these gentle, persuasive methods Muskwa was wakened sufficiently to get on his feet. He swayed drunkenly. "Stop fighting, Cubs!" he growled, under the impression that he was being bothered by some of his own children.

"Get up and squeeze the springs of the Trap--Carcajou is caught! Here they are--put a paw on each--there! squeeze!" yelled Black Fox.

Just then Beaver finished cutting the pole, and it fell with a crash--the noise helped waken Muskwa.

"Slip the ring off the stub, Umisk, that's a good Chap," cried Wolverine. This done, he and the Trap clattered to the ground.

"Come on!" screamed Black Fox to Muskwa, as he and Rof shouldered him to the Trap. "Squeeze now!" the Fox shouted again, placing Bear's powerful paws on the springs.

"I'll squeeze," answered Bruin, petulantly; "but why don't you speak louder--say what you mean. You Fellows have all got colds--I can't hear you."

"Dead Eagles! but François will," remarked Jay.

"There, now, a little harder--use your strength, Muskwa!"

The Bear pressed his great weight on the springs; they slipped down, and the jaws slowly opened like the sides of a travelling-bag. With a cry of delight Carcajou pulled his bruised fingers out, and in gratitude rubbed his short little Coon-like head against Bruin's great cheek. "Good old Muskwa!" he cried joyfully; "I'll never forget this."

"Your fingers will be a long time sore, then," sneered Jay.

"Never--mind--little friend. It's all right; let me go--to sleep now, don't--don't bother;" and he flopped over like a bag of potatoes, sighed wearily once or twice, and started off with a monotonous, bubbling snore. "He's hopeless," moaned the King. "We'll never get him home."

"I saw François just like that once," chirped Whisky-Jack; "he had some medicine in a bottle, and the more of it he took the sleepier he got."

"How in the name of Many Birds shall we ever get him back to his hole?" asked Black Fox, perplexedly.

"I'll carry him," declared the Moose. "Here, you Fellows, roll him up on my horns;" and dropping to his knees Mooswa put the great, chair-like spread of his antlers down to the snow.

"Come, Pisew, give us a hand," commanded the King. Beaver, and Lynx, and Rof, and Black Fox shouldered and pushed at the huge black ball, and Mooswa kept edging his horn-cradle in under the mass, until finally Muskwa lay snugly in the hollow.

"Now all give a mighty push, and help me up!" snuffed the Moose. "All right," he added, staggering to his feet, and pointing his nose skyward, allowing the burdened antlers to lie along his withers.