egs, big, soft feet, thin neck, and skimpy tail
proclaimed him this year's Cub. The record of the dust and sand said
that the old one had lost a right front toe, and that the young one was
of giant size.

It was the wolver that thought to turn the carcass of the Calf to
profit, but he was disappointed in getting Coyotes instead of Wolves.
It was the beginning of the trapping season, for this month fur is
prime. A young trapper often fastens the bait on the trap; an
experienced one does not. A good trapper will even put the bait at one
place and the trap ten or twenty feet away, but at a spot that the Wolf
is likely to cross in circling. A favorite plan is to hide three or
four traps around an open place, and scatter some scraps of meat in the
middle. The traps are buried out of sight after being smoked to hide
the taint of hands and iron. Sometimes no bait is used except a little
piece of cotton or a tuft of feathers that may catch the Wolf's eye or
pique its curiosity and tempt it to circle on the fateful, treacherous
ground. A good trapper varies his methods continually so that the
Wolves cannot learn his ways. Their only safeguards are perpetual
vigilance and distrust of all smells that are known to be of man.

The wolver, with a load of the strongest steel traps, had begun his
autumn work on the 'Cottonwood.'

An old Buffalo trail crossing the river followed a little draw that
climbed the hills to the level upland. All animals use these trails,
Wolves and Foxes as well as Cattle and Deer: they are the main
thoroughfares. A cottonwood stump not far from where it plunged to the
gravelly stream was marked with Wolf signs that told the wolver of its
use. Here was an excellent place for traps, not on the trail, for
Cattle were here in numbers, but twenty yards away on a level, sandy
spot he set four traps in a twelve-foot square. Near each he scattered
two or three scraps of meat; three or four white feathers on a spear of
grass in the middle completed the setting. No human eye, few animal
noses, could have detected the hidden danger of that sandy ground, when
the sun and wind and the sand itself had dissipated the man-track taint.

The Yellow Wolf had seen and passed, and taught her giant son to pass,
such traps a thousand times before.

The Cattle came to water in the heat of the day. They strung down the
Buffalo path as once the Buffalo did. The little Vesper-birds flitted
before them, the Cowbirds rode on them,