any fur on the padding of the toe-balls. The land animal of
the same size has clear cut, narrower, heavier marks. By March, these
dotting foot-tracks thread the snow everywhere.

Coming on marten tracks at a pine log, the trapper sends in his dog or
prods with a stick. Finding nothing, he baits a steel-trap with
pomatum, covers it deftly with snow, drags the decoy skin about to
conceal his own tracks, and goes away in the hope that the marten will
come back to this log to guzzle on his prey and sleep.

If the track is much frequented, or the forest over-run with marten
tracks, the trapper builds deadfalls, many of them running from tree to
tree for miles through the forest in a circle whose circuit brings him
back to his cabin. Remnants of these log traps may be seen through all
parts of the Rocky Mountain forests. Thirty to forty traps are
considered a day's work for one man, six or ten marten all that he
expects to take in one round; but when marten are plentiful, the unused
traps of to-day may bring a prize to-morrow.

The Indian trapper would use still another kind of trap. Where the
tracks are plainly frequently used runways to watering-places or lair in
hollow tree, the Indian digs a pit across the marten's trail. On this he
spreads brush in such roof fashion that though the marten is a good
climber, if once he falls in, it is almost impossible for him to
scramble out. If a poor cackling grouse or "fool-hen" be thrust into the
pit, the Indian is almost sure to find a prisoner. This seems to the
white man a barbarous kind of trapping; but the poor "fool-hen," hunted
by all the creatures of the forest, never seems to learn wisdom, but
invites disaster by popping out of the brush to stare at every living
thing that passes. If she did not fall a victim in the pit, she
certainly would to her own curiosity above ground. To the steel-trap the
hunter attaches a piece of log to entangle the prisoner's flight as he
rushes through the underbush. Once caught in the steel jaws, little
wapistan must wait--wait for what? For the same thing that comes to the
poor "fool-hen" when wapistan goes crashing through the brush after her;
for the same thing that comes to the baby squirrels when wapistan climbs
a tree to rob the squirrel's nest, eat the young, and live in the rifled
house; for the same thing that comes to the hoary marmot whistling his
spring tune just outside his rocky den when wapistan, who has climbed
up, pounces down