inside and out and then stuffed them with a mixture of blood and
oatmeal that she had prepared and seasoned with salt, and hung her
home-made sausages high up inside the tepee to let them congeal and
also to be out of reach of the dogs. In the meantime, Amik had made
two frames, and Naudin and her daughters had stretched and laced into
them, not only the moose hide, but the skin of the caribou as well; and
when the meat was cut up and hung from the branches of a tree, it was
time to sit around the fire and have our evening talk.

But Oo-koo-hoo, slipping away in his hunting canoe, paddled up a little
creek into a small lake in which he knew a colony of beavers lived. He
was gone about an hour and upon his return he told us about it. On
gaining the little mere, he, without removing his paddle from the
water, propelled his canoe slowly and silently along the shore in the
shadow of the overhanging trees, until a large beaver lodge appeared in
the rising mist; and then standing up in his canoe--in order to get a
better view--he became motionless. Minutes passed while the rising
moon cast golden ripples upon the water, and two beavers, rising from
below, swam toward and mounted the roof of their island home. Then,
while the moonlight faded and glowed, other beavers appeared and swam
hither and thither; some hauling old barkless poles, others bringing
freshly cut poplar branches, and all busily engaged. A twig snapping
behind the hunter, he turned his head, and as he caught a vanishing
glimpse of a lynx in a tree, he was instantly startled by a tremendous
report and a splashing upheaval of water beside his canoe. A beaver
had been swimming there, and on seeing the hunter move, had struck the
water with its powerful tail, to warn its mates before it dived. The
lynx had been watching the beaver.

[Illustration: Minutes passed while the rising moon cast golden ripples
upon the water and two beavers, rising from below, swam toward and
mounted the roof of their island home. A twig snapping behind the
hunter, he turned his head, and as he caught the vanishing glimpse of a
lynx in a tree, he was instantly startled by a tremendous report and a
splashing upheaval . . . See Chapter II.]

"Did you bring back anything?"

"No, my son," Oo-koo-hoo replied, "that hunting-ground belongs to an
old friend of mine."

WOODCRAFT OF TRAILING

After a while the subject of woodcraft arose. When I inquired as to
how I could best l