idening of the
foot near the toes, and the toes themselves, all plainly stamped upon
the snow. Here, however, arose another mystery. On counting the toes,
I found that in some of the tracks there were five--as there should have
been,--while in others there were only four! This led me to examine the
print of the toes more carefully; and I now saw that each of them was
armed with a claw, which, on account of some hairy covering, had made
but a very indefinite impression in the snow. The tracks, then, were
_not_ the footmarks of children, but those of some animal with claws.

"Notwithstanding that we had come to this conclusion, we still continued
to follow the trail. We were curious to see what sort of a creature had
made it. Perhaps it might be some animal unknown to naturalists,--some
new species; and we might one day have the merit of being the first to
describe it.

"We had not far to go: a hundred yards, or so, brought us in sight of a
grove of young cotton-woods; and these we saw at a glance were `barked'
by a porcupine. The whole mystery was cleared up,--we had been
following in the trail of this animal.

"I now remembered that the porcupine was one of the _plantigrade_
family, with five toes on his hind feet, and only four on the fore ones.
The tracks were undoubtedly his.

"My companion and I were somewhat chagrined at being thus drawn away
from our hunt by such an insignificant object; and we vowed to take
vengeance upon the porcupine as soon as we should set our eyes upon him.
We were not long in doing this,--for as we stole quietly forward, we
caught sight of a shaggy animal moving among the branches of a tree
about fifty yards ahead of us. It was he, of course. At the same
moment, however, another animal `hove in sight,' in appearance as
different from the porcupine as a bull from a blue-bottle.

"This creature--tail and all--was not less than a yard and a quarter in
length, and yet its body was not thicker than the upper part of a man's
arm. Its head was broad and somewhat flattened, with short, erect ears,
and pointed nose. It was bearded like a cat, although the face had more
of the dog in its expression. Its legs were short and strong; and both
legs and body denoted the possession of agility and strength. It was of
a reddish-brown colour, with a white mark on the breast, and darker
along the back and on the legs, feet, nose, and tail. Its whole
appearance reminded one of a gigantic weas