day. Then the sun
casts no man-shadow to scare game from his snares. Black is the flag of
betrayal in northern midwinter. It is by the big liquid eye, glistening
on the snow like a black marble, that the trapper detects the white
hare; and a jet tail-tip streaking over the white wastes in dots and
dashes tells him the little ermine, whose coat must line some emperor's
coronation robe, is alternately scudding over the drifts and diving
below the snow with the forward wriggling of a snake under cover. But
the moving man-shadow is bigger and plainer on the snow than the hare's
eye or the ermine's jet tip; so the Indian trapper sets out in the gray
darkness of morning and must reach his hunting-grounds before high
noon.

With long snow-shoes, that carry him over the drifts in swift, coasting
strides, he swings out in that easy, ambling, Indian trot, which gives
never a jar to the runner, nor rests long enough for the snows to crunch
beneath his tread.

The old musket, which he got in trade from the fur post, is over his
shoulder, or swinging lightly in one hand. A hunter's knife and
short-handled woodman's axe hang through the beaded scarf, belting in
his loose, caribou capote. Powder-horn and heavy musk-rat gantlets are
attached to the cord about his neck; so without losing either he can
fight bare-handed, free and in motion, at a moment's notice. And
somewhere, in side pockets or hanging down his back, is his
_skipertogan_--a skin bag with amulet against evil, matches, touchwood,
and a scrap of pemmican. As he grows hot, he throws back his hood,
running bareheaded and loose about the chest.

Each breath clouds to frost against his face till hair and brows and
lashes are fringed with frozen moisture. The white man would hugger his
face up with scarf and collar the more for this; but the Indian knows
better. Suddenly chilled breath would soak scarf and collar wet to his
skin; and his face would be frozen before he could go five paces. But
with dry skin and quickened blood, he can defy the keenest cold; so he
loosens his coat and runs the faster.

As the light grows, dim forms shape themselves in the gray haze. Pine
groves emerge from the dark, wreathed and festooned in snow. Cones and
domes and cornices of snow heap the underbrush and spreading larch
boughs. Evergreens are edged with white. Naked trees stand like limned
statuary with an antlered crest etched against the white glare. The
snow stretches away in a sea of