the fur country. Last year the city of
St. Paul alone cured 115,000 'coon-skins. What brought about the change?
Simply an appreciation of the qualities of 'coon, which combines the
greatest warmth with the lightest weight and is especially adapted for
a cold climate and constant wear. What was said of badger applies with
greater force to 'coon. The 'coon in the East is associated in one's
mind with cabbies, in the West with fashionably dressed men and women.
And there is just as wide a difference in the quality of the fur as in
the quality of the people. The cabbies' 'coon coat is a rough yellow fur
with red stripes. The Westerner's 'coon is a silky brown fur with black
stripes. One represents the fall hunt of men and boys round hollow logs,
the other the midwinter hunt of a professional trapper in the Far North.
A dog usually bays the 'coon out of hiding in the East. Tiny tracks,
like a child's hand, tell the Northern hunter where to set his traps.

Wahboos the rabbit, musquash the musk-rat, sikak the skunk, wenusk the
badger, and the common 'coon--these are the little chaps whose hunt
fills the idle days of the trapper's busy life. At night, before the
rough stone hearth which he has built in his cabin, he is still busy by
fire-light preparing their pelts. Each skin must be stretched and cured.
Turning the skin fur side in, the trapper pushes into the pelt a
wedge-shaped slab of spliced cedar. Into the splice he shoves another
wedge of wood which he hammers in, each blow widening the space and
stretching the skin. All pelts are stretched fur in but the fox. Tacking
the stretched skin on a flat board, the trapper hangs it to dry till he
carries all to the fort; unless, indeed, he should need a garment for
himself--cap, coat, or gantlets--in which case he takes out a square
needle and passes his evenings like a tailor, sewing.

CHAPTER XVII

THE RARE FURS--HOW THE TRAPPER TAKES SAKWASEW THE MINK, NEKIK THE
OTTER, WUCHAK THE FISHER, AND WAPISTAN THE MARTEN

I

_Sakwasew the Mink_

There are other little chaps with more valuable fur than musquash, whose
skin seldom attains higher honour than inside linings, and wahboos,
whose snowy coat is put to the indignity of imitating ermine with a
dotting of black cat for the ermine's jet tip. There are mink and otter
and fisher and fox and ermine and sable, all little fellows with pelts
worth their weight in coin of the realm.

On one of those idle days w