apparently made of old nails hammered to a point and filed into a barb.

Skookie now took this arm of his _klipsie_ to where he had left the butt
or hub of the trap, and he loosened up the heavy, braided cord of sinew
which passed from end to end through the butt. He pushed the butt end of
the arm in between these sinews so that pulling it sidewise twisted the
sinews. Then he drove tight the wedges at each end of the hub, so
straining the sinews tightly about the arm of the trap. Thus, as the
boys readily saw, a great force was exerted when the arm of the trap was
pulled back.

"That is what they call 'torsion,' I think," said Rob. "It is like a
gate-spring which pushes hard when you twist it. Look at those
sinews--thick as your thumb--and even one little sinew is strong enough
to hang an ox!"

Skookie went on with his work until he thought the strain on the arm was
sufficient. Then he pulled the arm back and caught it under a slight
notch which was cut in the side of the hub, which itself was open on one
side to allow the passage of the arm. When the trap was thus set it lay
flat on the ground, and Skookie motioned the boys to keep away from
it--something which all were willing to do, for the barbed arm of the
_klipsie_ resembled nothing so much as a fanged serpent with its head
back ready to strike a terrible blow.

"Natives get caught in these traps sometimes," said Rob; "so the old
trappers tell me. Sometimes they get crippled for life. You see, these
iron points here strike a man just about at the knee joint, and that's
pretty bad when there is no doctor around."

Skookie, going ahead with his work, fumbled in his pocket and fished out
a piece of hide cord, which he measured off to a certain length between
his arms; then, picking up a bit of stick, he whittled out a pointed peg
and attached one end of his cord to this, while he arranged the other so
that it would control the trigger which held the arm in place on the
farther side of the _klipsie_ bow. Now he stretched out his cord and
pushed the peg into the earth as though it crossed a fox path, and made
a motion of a fox walking along and touching his leg against the cord.
To do this he took a long stick instead of using his own limb.

Whang! went the _klipsie_, the fanged arm whirling over so fast that the
eye could hardly follow it, and burying its points in the ground.
Skookie laughed and danced up and down, showing how it certainly would
have killed a