bsence, the carcajou devoted all her
strength and cunning to making her way into the closed cabin. At last,
after infinite patience and endeavour, she managed to get in, through
the roof. There were supplies--flour, and bacon, and dried apples, all
very much to her distinctly catholic taste--and she enjoyed herself
immensely till private duties summoned her reluctantly away.

Spring comes late to the great snows, but when it does come it is
swift and not to be denied. Then summer, with much to do and little
time to do it in, rushes ardently down upon the plains and the
fir-forests. About three miles back from the cabin, on a dry knoll in
the heart of a tangled swamp, the old wolverene dug herself a
commodious and secret burrow. Here she gave birth to a litter of tiny
young ones, much like herself in miniature, only of a paler colour and
softer, silkier fur. In her ardent, unflagging devotion to these
little ones she undertook no hunting that would take her far from
home, but satisfied her appetite with mice, slugs, worms and beetles.

Living in such seclusion as she did, her enemies the wolves lost all
track of her for the time. The pack had broken up, as a formal
organization, according to the custom of wolf-packs in summer. But
there was still more or less cohesion, of a sort, between its
scattered members; and the leader and his mate had a cave not many
miles from the wolverene's retreat.

As luck would have it, the gray old leader, returning to the cave one
day with the body of a rabbit between his gaunt jaws, took a short cut
across the swamp, and came upon the trail of his long-lost enemy. In
fact, he came upon several of her trails; and he understood very well
what it meant. He had no time, or inclination, to stop and look into
the matter then; but his sagacious eyes gleamed with vengeful
intention as he continued his journey.

About this time--the time being a little past midsummer--the man came
back to his cabin, bringing supplies. It was a long journey between
the cabin and the settlements, and he had to make it several times
during the brief summer, in order to accumulate stores enough to last
through the long, merciless season of the great snows. When he reached
the cabin and found that, in spite of all his precautions, the greedy
carcajou had outwitted him and broken in, and pillaged his stores, his
indignation knew no bounds.

The carcajou had become an enemy more dangerous to him than all the
other