the Bear's Night and they were all asleep. When the animal was
near enough I fired and it fell. I ran towards it, and saw that it was a
splendid silver-gray fox. How carefully we skinned the animal!

The next day Jakob made a lot of traps for ermines. These traps are made
in the following manner: A string is attached to a loop long enough for
the head of the animal to pass through. The string is fastened to a
branch, which is bent down above the place where meat is deposited, some
distance back of the loop. The ermine approaches, and in trying to reach
the meat pushes his head through the loop and pulls the string up, and
the loop tightens round the neck and strangles the animal in the air.

We scattered these traps in every direction, and caught many ermines.
How pretty is the ermine, with its short legs, white fur, and tail
tipped with black! The ermine feeds much on the ptarmigans.

That day I saw perched on the low branch of a tree a beautiful snowy
owl, motionless, evidently watching for something. Jakob said to me,
"The owl is watching for ermines. There are plenty of these, I am sure,
round here, or the owl would not be on this tree. We will set some of
our traps here." The owl was big and beautiful, and I said to myself,
"The ermine feeds on the ptarmigans, and the owl on the ermine." I did
not like the idea of the harmless ptarmigans being eaten by ermines and
owls, so I raised my gun and knocked him over.

The foxes, after being hunted for two or three days, became very shy and
it was impossible to get near them. There were a great number of
ptarmigans, and they were so tame that we had no difficulty in getting
many for food.

Strange to say, when we fired our guns they made hardly any noise, for
the air was so rarefied. We feasted well at our camp, for we also killed
a number of white hares.

The white fox had become so scarce that we concluded to leave our camp
for good, and Jakob went to get our reindeer. After packing we retraced
our steps towards his home, his tent on the snow.

In one place where we stopped to rest I suddenly noticed that our
reindeer had got loose. I shouted to Jakob, who was quietly taking a
little snooze on the snow, "Our reindeer are loose!"

Without saying a word, he went to his sleigh and took a lasso. The Lapps
never travel without a lasso. This reassured me. "I must be very wary,
for our reindeer are somewhat wild," Jakob said; "Paulus, follow me." So
I took to my skees.