to Hudson Bay, reaching west to Athabasca,
east to Labrador. It is in the basin of Hudson Bay regions that the
Indian trapper will find his last hunting-grounds. Here climate excludes
the white man, and game is plentiful. Here Indian trappers were snaring
before Columbus opened the doors of the New World to the hordes of the
Old; and here Indian trappers will hunt as long as the race lasts. When
there is no more game, the Indian's doom is sealed; but that day is far
distant for the Hudson Bay region.

* * * * *

The Indian trapper has set few large traps. It is midwinter; and by
December there is a curious lull in the hunting. All the streams are
frozen like rock; but the otter and pekan and mink and marten have not
yet begun to forage at random across open field. Some foolish fish
always dilly-dally up-stream till the ice shuts them in. Then a strange
thing is seen--a kettle of living fish; fish gasping and panting in
ice-hemmed water that is gradually lessening as each day's frost freezes
another layer to the ice walls of their prison. The banks of such a pond
hole are haunted by the otter and his fisher friends. By-and-bye, when
the pond is exhausted, these lazy fishers must leave their safe bank and
forage across country. Meanwhile, they are quiet.

The bear, too, is still. After much wandering and fastidious
choosing--for in trapper vernacular the bear takes a long time to please
himself--bruin found an upturned stump. Into the hollow below he clawed
grasses. Then he curled up with his nose on his toes and went to sleep
under a snow blanket of gathering depth. Deer, moose, and caribou, too,
have gone off to their feeding-grounds. Unless they are scattered by a
wolf-pack or a hunter's gun, they will not be likely to move till this
ground is eaten over. Nor are many beaver seen now. They have long since
snuggled into their warm houses, where they will stay till their winter
store is all used; and their houses are now hidden under great depths of
deepening snow. But the fox and the hare and the ermine are at run; and
as long as they are astir, so are their rampant enemies, the lynx and
the wolverine and the wolf-pack, all ravenous from the scarcity of other
game and greedy as spring crows.

That thought gives wings to the Indian trapper's heels. The pelt of a
coyote--or prairie wolf--would scarcely be worth the taking. Even the
big, gray timber-wolf would hardly be worth the cost of t