and set himself to tear an entrance with
his resistless claws. The bark and dead wood flew in showers under his
efforts, and it was evident that the chipmunk's little home would
speedily lie open to the foe. But the chipmunk, meanwhile, from the
crotch of a limb overhead, was looking down in silent indignation.
Little Stripe-sides had been wise enough to provide his dwelling with
a sort of skylight exit.

Suddenly, in the midst of his task, the bear stopped and lifted his
muzzle to the wind. What was that new taint upon the air? It was one
almost unknown to him,--but one which he instinctively dreaded, though
without any reason based directly upon experience of his own. At
almost any other time, indeed, he would have taken the first whiff of
that ominous man-smell as a signal to efface himself and make off
noiselessly down the wind. But just now, his first feeling was wrath
at the thought of being hindered from his prospective meal. He would
let no one, not even a man, rob him of that chipmunk. Then, as his
wrath swelled rapidly, he decided to hunt the man himself. Perhaps,
as the bear relishes practically everything edible under the sun
except human flesh, he had no motive but a savage impulse to punish
the intruder for such an untimely intrusion. However that may be, a
red light came into his eyes, and he swung away to meet this unknown
trespasser upon his trails.

On that same day, after a breakfast before dawn in order that he might
make an early start, a gaunt trapper had set out from the Settlement
on the return journey to his camp beyond the Big Fork. He had been in
to the Settlement with a pack of furs, and was now hurrying back as
fast as he could, because of the sudden thaw. He was afraid the ice
might go out of the river and leave him cut off from his camp,--for
his canoe was on the other side. As the pelts were beginning to get
poor, he had left his rifle at home, and carried no weapon but his
knife. He had grown so accustomed to counting all the furry wild
folk as his prey that he never thought of them as possible
adversaries,--unless it might chance to be some such exception as a
bull-moose in rutting season. A rifle, therefore, when he was not
after skins, seemed to him a useless burden; and he was carrying,
moreover, a pack of camp supplies on his broad back. He was tall,
lean, leather-faced and long-jawed, with calm, light blue eyes under
heavy brows; and he wore a stout, yellow-brown, homespun shirt