imple words, "Ain't it fine," while the Indian gazed in silence.

There is no other place in the eastern woods where the snow has
such manifold tales to tell, and the hunters that day tramping found
themselves dowered over night with the wonderful power of the hound
to whom each trail is a plain record of every living creature that has
passed within many hours. And though the first day after a storm has
less to tell than the second, just as the second has less than the
third, there was no lack of story in the snow. Here sped some antlered
buck, trotting along while yet the white was flying. There went a
fox, sneaking across the line of march, and eying distrustfully that
deadfall. This broad trail with many large tracks not far apart was
made by one of Skookum's friends, a knight of many spears. That bounding
along was a marten. See how he quartered that thicket like a hound, here
he struck our odour trail. Mark, how he paused and whiffed it; now away
he goes; yes, straight to our trap.

"It's down; hurrah!" Rolf shouted, for there, dead under the log, was
an exquisite marten, dark, almost black, with a great, broad, shining
breast of gold.

They were going back now toward the beaver lake. The next trap was
sprung and empty; the next held the body of a red squirrel, a nuisance
always and good only to rebait the trap he springs. But the next held a
marten, and the next a white weasel. Others were unsprung, but they
had two good pelts when they reached the beaver lake. They were in high
spirits with their good luck, but not prepared for the marvellous haul
that now was theirs. Each of the six traps held a big beaver, dead,
drowned, and safe. Each skin was worth five dollars, and the hunters
felt rich. The incident had, moreover, this pleasing significance: It
showed that these beavers were unsophisticated, so had not been hunted.
Fifty pelts might easily be taken from these ponds.

The trappers reset the traps; then dividing the load, sought a remote
place to camp, for it does not do to light a fire near your beaver pond.
One hundred and fifty pounds of beaver, in addition, to their packs, was
not a load to be taken miles away; within half a mile on a lower level
they selected a warm place, made a fire, and skinned their catch. The
bodies they opened and hung in a tree with a view to future use, but the
pelts and tails they carried on.

They made a long, hard tramp that day, baiting all the traps and reached
home lat