like the guinea-pigs and rabbits of
bacteriological laboratories, to the necessities of man. Only, this
death is swifter and less painful. A prolonged death-struggle with the
beaver would probably rob the trapper of half his fingers. Very often
the little beavers with poor fur are let go. If the dog attempts to
capture the frightened runaways by catching at the conspicuous appendage
to the rear, that dog is likely to emerge from the struggle minus a
tail, while the beaver runs off with two.

Trappers have curious experiences with beaver kittens which they take
home as pets. When young they are as easily domesticated as a cat, and
become a nuisance with their love of fondling. But to them, as to the
hunter, comes what the Indians call "the-sickness-of-long-thinking," the
gipsy yearning for the wilds. Then extraordinary things happen. The
beaver are apt to avenge their comrades' death. One old beaver trapper
of New Brunswick related that by June the beavers became so restless, he
feared their escape and put them in cages. They bit their way out with
absurd ease.

He then tried log pens. They had eaten a hole through in a night.
Thinking to get wire caging, he took them into his lodge, and they
seemed contented enough while he was about; but one morning he wakened
to find a hole eaten through the door, and the entire round of
birch-bark, which he had staked out ready for the gunwales and ribbing
of his canoe--bark for which he had travelled forty miles--chewed into
shreds. The beavers had then gone up-stream, which is their habit in
spring.

CHAPTER X

THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS

It is a grim joke of the animal world that the lazy moose is the moose
that gives wings to the feet of the pursuer. When snow comes the trapper
must have snow-shoes and moccasins. For both, moose supplies the best
material.

Bees have their drones, beaver their hermits, and moose a ladified
epicure who draws off from the feeding-yards of the common herd, picks
out the sweetest browse of the forest, and gorges herself till fat as a
gouty voluptuary. While getting the filling for his snow-shoes, the
trapper also stocks his larder; and if he can find a spinster moose, he
will have something better than shredded venison and more delicately
flavoured than finest teal.

Sledding his canoe across shallow lakelets, now frozen like rock, still
paddling where there is open way, the trapper continues to guide his
course up the waterways.