ed the gun trick before, to have the cord gnawed
through and the bait stolen. A wolverine is not to be easily tricked;
but its gluttony and curiosity bring it within man's reach.

The man watches until he knows the part of the woods where the wolverine
nightly gallops. He then procures a savoury piece of meat heavy enough
to balance a cocked trigger, not heavy enough to send it off. The gun is
suspended from some dense evergreen, which will hide the weapon. The
bait hangs from the trigger above the wolverine's reach.

Then a curious game begins.

One morning the trapper sees the wolverine tracks round and round the
tree as if determined to ferret out the mystery of the meat in mid-air.

The next morning the tracks have come to a stand below the meat. If the
wolverine could only get up to the bait, one whiff would tell him
whether the man-smell was there. He sits studying the puzzle till his
mark is deep printed in the snow.

The trapper smiles. He has only to wait.

The rascal may become so bold in his predatory visits that the man may
be tempted to chance a shot without waiting.

But if the man waits Nemesis hangs at the end of the cord. There comes a
night when the wolverine's curiosity is as rampant as his gluttony. A
quick clutch of the ripping claws and a blare of fire-smoke blows the
robber's head into space.

The trapper will hold those hunting-grounds.

He has got rid of the most unwelcome visitor a solitary man ever had;
but for the consolation of those whose sympathies are keener for the
animal than the man, it may be said that in the majority of such
contests it is the wolverine and not the man that wins.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: Radisson and Groseillers, from regions westward of
Duluth.]

[Footnote 31: Especially the Chateau de Ramezay, where great underground
vaults were built for the storing of pelts in case of attack from New
Englander and Iroquois. These vaults may still be seen under Chateau de
Ramezay.]

CHAPTER VII

THE BUFFALO-RUNNERS

If the trapper had a crest like the knights of the wilderness who lived
lives of daredoing in olden times, it should represent a canoe, a
snow-shoe, a musket, a beaver, and a buffalo. While the beaver was his
quest and the coin of the fur-trading realm, the buffalo was the great
staple on which the very existence of the trapper depended.

Bed and blankets and clothing, shields for wartime, sinew for bows,
bone for the shaping of rude lanc