he price of a pound and a half of powder, a tie of
tobacco. No footmark must the hunter leave, Ma'amselle, unsplashed with
water, no tainting touch of a hand ungloved on chain or stake or trap
itself. Ah! one must know the woods and the stream, the cold and the
snow and the winds."

"You know them, M'sieu, I have no doubt," said Maren, "for you follow
the trapping trail. And those beautiful silver fox, frosty and fine as
the sparkle of a winter morning? The heavy hides of the bear, soft and
glossy and thick as a folded blanket?"

"All the trap,--unless the latter drops through the flimsy roof of some
well-hidden dead-fall, covered with brush."

The girl was not looking at him, her glance being still on the bustling
camp below. The fingers on her knee were laced tight together.

Now she began to speak in a low voice, deep and even.

"Aye! All you have said is true. Wealth, indeed, is in those packs, and
patience and cunning and utmost skill, defiance of the snows and the
crackling cold, long miles on snowshoes and the hardships of the trail,
the nights in the bough-tied huts, the pack galling the shoulders. But
what is all this beside that which waits the runner of the trail at
every 'set' in those many miles? Here he finds his leaning-pole. There
have been little tracks up its slim roadway, but those were covered by
the fall of three days back and the little creature who made them hangs
there at the end, three small feet beating the cold air feebly, a
tiny head squirming from side to side, two dull black eyes set at the
distorted world. He has caught his marten. It has not frozen, for the
snow was light and the forest still and thick, and three days have
passed, M'sieu. Three days! Mon Dieu! How much were those three days
worth? The trapper taps the squirming head and puts the bit of fur in
his pack-bag. On to the next. The beaver? Dead, M'sieu, thanks to the
good God, drowned in its own sweet water. The pack is heavy with small
bodies ere the Assiniboine reaches the place where he has laid his trap
for the silver fox. And what greets him here? Only a foot gnawed off in
the silence of the day and the night, and some beauty gone staggering
away to lie and suffer with starvation in the cold."

The youth was staring at the averted face beside him, mouth open and
utter amazement on his features.

Maren went on.

"And lastly, M'sieu, far at the end of the trail,--at the outer, rim of
the circle traced by his traps,-