wner of a gun as soon as another
chance came, and to make that chance come right soon.

One little victory he had in that time. The creature that had torn open
the venison bag was still around the camp; that was plain by the further
damage on the bag hung in the storehouse, the walls of which were not
chinked. Mindful of Quonab's remark, he set two marten traps, one on
the roof, near the hole that had been used as entry; the other on a log
along which the creature must climb to reach the meat. The method of
setting is simple; a hollow is made, large enough to receive the trap
as it lies open; on the pan of the trap some grass is laid smoothly;
on each side of the trap a piece of prickly brush is placed, so that
in leaping over these the creature will land on the lurking snare. The
chain was made fast to a small log.

Although so seldom seen there is no doubt that the marten comes out
chiefly by day. That night the trap remained unsprung; next morning
as Rolf went at silent dawn to bring water from the lake, he noticed
a long, dark line that proved to be ducks. As he sat gazing he heard
a sound in the tree beyond the cabin. It was like the scratching of
a squirrel climbing about. Then he saw the creature, a large, dark
squirrel, it seemed. It darted up this tree and down that, over logs and
under brush, with the lightning speed of a lightning squirrel, and from
time to time it stopped still as a bump while it gazed at some far and
suspicious object. Up one trunk it went like a brown flash, and a moment
later, out, cackling from its top, flew two partridges. Down to the
ground, sinuous, graceful, incessantly active flashed the marten. Along
a log it raced in undulating leaps; in the middle it stopped as though
frozen, to gaze intently into a bed of sedge; with three billowy bounds
its sleek form reached the sedge, flashed in and out again with a
mouse in its snarling jaws; a side leap now, and another squeaker was
squeakless, and another. The three were slain, then thrown aside, as the
brown terror scanned a flight of ducks passing over. Into a thicket of
willow it disappeared and out again like an eel going through the mud,
then up a tall stub where woodpecker holes were to be seen. Into the
largest it went so quickly Rolf could scarcely see how it entered,
and out in a few seconds bearing a flying squirrel whose skull it had
crushed. Dropping the squirrel it leaped after it, and pounced again on
the quivering form with