ay, and had thus been caught by part of his foot. If it were in the
winter time when he was thus caught he doubtless ate the part of the
foot that was held in the teeth of the trap without feeling any
sensation of pain, as the cold would quickly freeze it solid. If he
were caught in the summer time he would use the most desperate efforts
to pull himself loose ere he would use his teeth, and then, of course,
he would suffer much in the operation. Hence in the winter time a fox,
as a general thing, if only caught by one foot, cuts himself off in a
few hours, but in summer time he has been known to remain in a couple of
days. Indians often talk of clever three-legged foxes in the woods.

One pleasant day Frank persuaded Memotas to go out with him and help him
set his traps for that old fox that had so long tantalised him by his
tricks and was getting fat on his bait. This the old man did with
pleasure, for he had become very much attached to Frank. When they
reached the place, to which they had come on Frank's dog-sled, the
Indian very carefully examined the region around for quite a distance.
He told Frank where the fox's den was, and said that now that he had
become so well acquainted with Frank perhaps a stranger might get hold
of him. He asked Frank to show him how he had generally set his traps
that had been so unceremoniously sprung and robbed of the bait. This
Frank proceeded to do, and, as he thought, very quickly and cleverly
sprung back and baited them. Memotas watched him go through all the
process, and then rather coolly took him down by saying:

"Good trap, well set, plenty of bait; might perhaps catch a puppy or old
crow, but never fox."

This seemed rather rough on Frank, and he was glad that Sam was not
there to improve the occasion with some further caustic remarks.

When the Indian saw that Frank seemed so crestfallen at his comments he
at once hastened to assure him that they all had to learn much about
these animals, and now he said:

"You and I will go to work and see if we cannot get that fox in a trap
again, even if his half foot tells us he has been there before."

The first thing they did was to decide where to set the traps.

"Not much hurry, though, about that," said Memotas. "We must first have
a fire to burn all of Frank off the traps."

This was a bit of a puzzle to Frank at first, but when Memotas told
Frank that every time he handled a trap or a bit of bait he left enough
o