egan to dig, and promptly uncovered a
light chain. Following this she came presently to the trap itself,
which she cautiously laid bare. Then, without misgiving, she ate the
big piece of fish. Both her curiosity and her hunger, however, were
still far from satisfied, so she again took up the trail.

The next trap she came to was an open snare--a noose of bright wire
suspended near the head of a cunningly constructed alley of fir
branches, leading up to the foot of a big hemlock. Just behind this
noose, and hardly to be reached save through the noose, the bait had
evidently been fixed. But the carcajou saw that some one little less
cunning than herself had been before her. Such a snare would have
caught the fierce, but rather stupid, lynx; but a fox had been the
first arrival. She saw his tracks. He had carefully investigated the
alley of fir branches from the outside. Then he had broken through it
behind the noose, and safely made off with the bait. Rather
contemptuously the old wolverene went on. She did not understand this
kind of trap, so she discreetly refrained from meddling with it.

[Illustration: "CREPT SLOWLY AROUND THE RAGING AND SNARLING CAPTIVE."]

Fully a quarter mile she had to go before she came to another; but
here she found things altogether different and more interesting. As
she came softly around a great snow-draped boulder there was a snarl,
a sharp rattle of steel, and a thud. She shrank back swiftly, just
beyond reach of the claws of a big lynx. The lynx had been ahead of
her in discovering the trap, and with the stupidity of his tribe had
got caught in it. The inexorable steel jaws had him fast by the left
fore leg. He had heard the almost soundless approach of the strange
prowler, and, mad with pain and rage, had sprung to the attack without
waiting to see the nature of his antagonist.

Keeping just beyond the range of his hampered leap, the carcajou now
crept slowly around the raging and snarling captive, who kept pouncing
at her in futile fury every other moment. Though his superior in sheer
strength, she was much smaller and lighter than he, and less
murderously armed for combat; and she dreaded the raking, eviscerating
clutch of his terrible hinder claws. In defence of her burrow and her
litter, she would have tackled him without hesitation; but her sharp
teeth and bulldog jaw, however efficient, would not avail, in such a
combat, to save her from getting ripped almost to ribbons. She was