ground and the meat from the foxes than did the obvious
nature of the traps; not a track was near, and many afar showed how
quickly they had veered off.

"Ugh, it is always so," said Quonab. "Will you try again?"

"Yes, I will," replied Rolf, remembering now that he had omitted to
deodorize his traps and his boots.

He made a fire of cedar and smoked his traps, chains, and all. Then
taking a piece of raw venison he rubbed it on his leather gloves and
on the soles of his boots, wondering how he had expected to succeed the
night before with all these man-scent killers left out. He put fine,
soft moss under the pan of each trap, then removed the cedar brush, and
gently sprinkled all with fine, dry earth. The set was perfect; no human
eye could have told that there was any trap in the place. It seemed a
foregone success.

"Fox don't go by eye," was all the Indian said, for he reckoned it best
to let the learner work it out.

In the morning Rolf was up eager to see the results. There was nothing
at all. A fox had indeed, come within ten feet at one place, but behaved
then as though positively amused at the childishness of the whole smelly
affair. Had a man been there on guard with a club, he could not have
kept the spot more wholly clear of foxes. Rolf turned away baffled and
utterly puzzled. He had not gone far before he heard a most terrific
yelping from Skookum, and turned to see that trouble-seeking pup caught
by the leg in the first trap. It was more the horrible surprise than the
pain, but he did howl.

The hunters came quickly to the rescue and at once he was freed, none
the worse, for the traps have no teeth; they merely hold. It is the
long struggle and the starvation chiefly that are cruel, and these every
trapper should cut short by going often around his line.

Now Quonab took part. "That is a good setting for some things. It would
catch a coon, a mink, or a marten,--or a dog--but not a fox or a wolf.
They are very clever. You shall see."

The Indian got out a pair of thick leather gloves, smoked them in cedar,
also the traps. Next he rubbed his moccasin soles with raw meat and
selecting a little bay in the shore he threw a long pole on the sand,
from the line of high, dry shingle across to the water's edge. In
his hand he carried a rough stake. Walking carefully on the pole and
standing on it, he drove the stake in at about four feet from the shore;
then split it, and stuffed some soft moss into the spl