iling-faced, motherly old lady, did the deed with nothing but her
little axe.

But while the men of the wilderness laugh over the serious drivel of
most fiction writers who make a specialty of northern tales, nothing is
so supremely ludicrous as the attempts made by the average movie
director to depict northern life in Canada. Never have I seen a
photoplay that truthfully illustrated northern Canadian life.

THE WOLVERINE AND GILL NET

Next day we again set out on a moose trail, but, as ill luck followed
us in the way of a heavy snowstorm, we gave up the chase and continued
on our way. It was hard going and we stopped often. Once we halted to
rest beside a number of otter tracks. Otters leave a surprisingly big
trail for animals of their size. A good imitation could be made of an
otter's trail by pressing down into the snow, in a horizontal position,
a long, irregular stove pipe of the usual size. The reason the otter's
trail is so formed, is that the animal, when travelling through deep
snow, progresses on its belly and propels itself principally by its
hind legs, especially when going down hill. When making a hillside
descent an otter prefers to use an old, well-worn track and glides down
it with the ease and grace of a toboggan on its slide. It was the
sight of the otter's trail that set Oo-koo-hoo thinking of his younger
days.

"Years ago, my son, I very nearly killed a man. It happened at just
such a place as this: a little lake with a patch of open water above a
spring. It was on my father's hunting grounds, and late one afternoon,
after passing through heavy timber, I came out upon its shore, and
there I discovered two men robbing one of my otter traps. One man was
holding up the otter by the tail and laughingly commenting on his gain,
while the other was resetting the trap beneath the ice. I raised my
gun and was about to fire, when it occurred to me that, after all, a
man's life was worth more than an otter's skin; so I let them go, and
left it to the Redcoats (Mounted Police) to settle with them. I knew
them both. They were half-breeds from near Montreal, and were well
learned in the ways of the whites."

[Illustration: It was on my father's hunting grounds, and late one
afternoon, after passing through heavy timber, I came out upon its
shore, and there I discovered two men robbing one of my traps. One man
was holding up the otter by the tail and laughingly commenting on his
gain, while