by sympathy the exactly
proper moment for the next move in the game, Logan made a swooping
forward plunge with the blanket. With a screech of fury the lynx sprang
to the grapple,--to find himself, in half a second, rolled over and
tangled up and swathed helpless in the smothering woollen folds. In vain
he bit, and spat, and yowled, and tore. His keen white fangs caught
nothing but choking wool; his rending claws had no chance to do their
work; and the crushing weight of the woodsman's sturdy body was bearing
him down into the snow. In a few moments, daunted by the thick darkness
over his eyes and exhausted by the impotence of his efforts, he lay
still, quivering with rage. Then, with the most delicate caution,
working through a couple of folds of the blanket, Logan released the
jaws of the trap and slipped it warily from the imprisoned paw. To
remove it from within the perilous paral was, of course, not to be
thought of; but he feared to damage the joint by leaving it in that
inexorable clutch a moment longer than was necessary. This done, he
deftly whipped a lashing of cod-line about the bundle, binding the legs
securely, but leaving a measure of freedom about the head and neck. Then
he thrust the bundle into the canvas bag, slung it over his back, and
started on the five-mile tramp back to his camp.

Logan travelled without snow-shoes, because there was just now little
snow on the trails, or even in the deep woods. What snow there was,
moreover, was frozen almost as hard as rock, except for an inch or two
of fluffy stuff which had fallen leisurely within a couple of days. An
extraordinarily heavy and prolonged January thaw, followed by fierce and
sudden frost, had brought about this unusual condition, making something
like a famine among the hunting kindreds of the forest, whose
light-footed quarry, the eaters of bark and twig and bud, now found
flight easy over the frozen surfaces.

The complacent trapper, ruminating pleasantly over his triumph and the
handsome price his captive was to bring him, had covered perhaps a mile
of his homeward journey when from far behind him came to his ears a
novel sound, faintly pulsing down the still night air. Without seeming
to pay it any attention whatever, he nevertheless was instantly and
keenly concerned; and he perceived that the uneasy bundle on his back
was interested too, for it stopped its indignant wrigglings to listen.
Up to this moment Logan had believed that there was