Part 7

"Smothered anybody this morning, Sikak?" asked the Bird.

A laugh went round the circle at this sally of Jack's; for Skunk's method of fighting did not meet with universal approval. Blue Wolf thought Sikak was a good piece of meat clean thrown away. When hungry he could manage Badger, or even Porcupine; but Skunk! "Ur-r-r, agh!" it turned his stomach to think of the dose he had received once when he tried it.

"Good-morning, Your Majesty!" said Lynx, as he arrived shortly after Skunk.

"How is everybody up your way?" queried Jack. "How are all the young Wapooses?"

Lynx grinned deprecatingly.

"Pisew is not likely to forget the Law of the Seventh Year," remarked Carcajou, with a sinister expression, "so he is not so deeply interested in young Wapoos as he used to be."

"What is the meeting for?" asked Lynx.

"Francois has been visiting the pond of our little Comrade, Umisk," replied Black King.

"And has been at my Slide, too," declared Otter.

"Well, Comrades, we had better go with Nekik and examine into this thing," commanded the King.

"Oh, of course!" cried Jack; "every community must have Fishery Laws, and have its Fisheries protected."

The Otter slide was exactly like a boy's coasting chute on a hill. A smooth, iced trough ran down the snow-covered bank, a matter of fifteen feet, to the stream's edge, ending in an ice hole that Otter managed to keep open all Winter. Generally speaking, it was Nekik's entrance to his river-home, and in the event of danger demanding a quick disappearance, he could shoot down it into the water like a bullet. It was also a play-ground for Otter's family; their favourite pastime being to glide helter-skelter down the chute and splash into the stream.

"What's wrong with it?" asked Black Fox. "There's a nasty odour of Man about, I admit, but your Slide seems all clear and smooth."

"Something's been changed. I had a little drop put in the centre for the Youngsters, and they liked it--thought it was like falling off a bank, you know; now that part is filled up nearly level, you see. I don't know what is in it--was afraid to look; but expect Francois has set a Trap there."

"I'll find out," said Carcajou. "These Traps all work from the top--I've discovered that much. If you keep walking about, you're pretty sure to get into one of them; but if you sit down and think, and scrape sideways a bit, you'll get hold of something that won't go off." Talking thus, he dug with his strong claws at the edge of the Slide. "I thought so!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Here's a ring around a stake--I know what that means!"

Feeling cautiously for the chain, he presently pulled out a No. 3 steel Trap. With notched jaws wide open, and tip-plate holding its flat surface up inviting the loosening pressure, it was a vicious-looking affair.

"Let me spring it," said Wolf; "I'm used to them." Grabbing the chain end in his teeth, he threw the Trap over his head as a dog does a bone in play, and when it came down the sides clanged together with hurried fondness.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" whistled Otter. "Something told me not to go down that Slide. I felt it in my bones."

"You'd have felt it on your bones," piped Jay, ironically, "if you had slid your fat belly over that Trap."

"Oh, I'm just dying for a slide and a bath," continued Nekik--"here goes!"

"Wait a bit!" commanded Carcajou, grabbing him by the shoulder, "don't be too eager. That isn't Francois's Lucky Trap. If he has discovered your front stream, you can just depend upon it his Lucky Trap is laid away somewhere for you--it's got two red bands painted on the springs."

As these words of wisdom fell from Carcajou's lips his Comrades gathered their feet more closely under them, and searched the surrounding territory apprehensively with their eyes.

"Where will it be?" cried Nekik, distressedly.

"In the water!" answered Carcajou, with brief decision.

"Dreadful!" whimpered Otter.

"Francois is a heartless wretch!" declared Beaver. "He tried to play that trick on me once."

"Where was that, Paddle-tail?" queried Jack, who was always eager for a bit of gossip.

"It was when I lived up on Pembina River. You know the way with us Beavers--we always take a month or two of holiday every Summer, and visit our Friends. It was in June--I remember; I opened the Lodge to let it air, and started down stream with my whole family. Of course we passed many Beaver-roads running to the river, and when we thought they belonged to friends we'd pull out and go up on the bank. Carcajou, you know the little round bowl of mud we Beaver leave on our river-roads for visitors' cards?"

"Yes," replied Wolverine; "they're a rather good idea. You always know just who has passed, don't you?"

"Yes, we can tell, generally. Well, as I was saying, we went up the bank in one of these Roads, and by the odour of the little clay mound I knew that Red Jowl, a cousin of mine, was just inside the Wood--or had been. So the family went among the Poplars to have a bite of bread; and just as we were felling a tree whom should I see but Francois drifting down the river in his canoe; we kept pretty close, you had better believe."

"Didn't call out to him, Umisk, eh?" asked Jay--"didn't clap each other on the back with your tails and say, 'Here comes a Chum.'"

Umisk proceeded, paying no attention to the flippant Bird. "When the Breed came opposite our Road he stopped his canoe, let it drift gently up to the bank, pulled out a Trap and set it in muddy water just at the foot of the path. He was clever enough not to touch the land even with his paddle, so there was no scent--nothing to warn a poor Beaver of the danger. Then he floated on down. If I had not seen the whole thing this depraved taker of our lives would have caught me sure; for you know how we go into the water, Nekik, just as you do--head and hands first."

"That's an old trick of Francois's," exclaimed Carcajou; "and you'll find that is just what he has done here. If Mister Nekik will feel cautiously at the foot of his Slide he will find something hard and smooth, not at all like a stick or a stone."

"Fat Fish! but I'm afraid of my fingers," whistled Otter.

"Sure, if you work from the top," retorted Carcajou. "Sideways is the game with the Trap always--or upward."

"You forgot that, Mister Carcajou, when you tackled the Chimney," twittered Jay.

"I didn't burn my tongue, anyway."

"Is Nekik afraid to safeguard his own Slide," sneered Whisky-Jack.

"Shut up, Quarrel Maker!" interposed the King, "you know Otter is one of the pluckiest fighters inside the Boundaries. It's only brainless Animals who tackle things they know nothing about."

"Dive their beaks into hot Pork, your Most Wise Majesty," echoed Lynx, with a fawning smile.

"Here's Sakwasew, he'll find the Trap, he's a water dweller," exclaimed Carcajou, as Mink, attracted by their chatter, came wandering down the stream. "Here, little Black-tail," he continued, "just dip down the hole there and look for evidence of Francois's deviltry."

"It's against the Law of the Boundaries," pleaded Mink, "for me to use Otter's ice hole. By the Kink in my Tail, I'm not like some of my Comrades, always breaking the laws."

"Aren't you, Mink? Who cut the throats of Gray Hen, the Grouse's, Children, last July, when they were still in their pin-feathers? But I suppose that isn't breaking the Law of the Boundaries," cried Lynx, taking Mink's observation to himself.

"Oh, no," chipped in Whisky-Jack; "certain of you Animals think keeping the Law is not getting caught. My own opinion is, you're as bad as Men. When Francois puts out the White Death-powder, he thinks he is keeping Man's law if the Red Coats do not catch him; and Sakwasew cuts the throat of Chick-Grouse, and you, Pisew, eat Kit Beaver, and it's all within the Law if there be no witnesses. I don't know what we are coming to."

"Stop wrangling, you Subjects!" commanded Black King; and the silvered fur on his back stood straight up in anger. "I'll order Rof to thrash you soundly, if you don't stop this."

Pisew slunk tremblingly behind a tree, and Carcajou, humping his back, exclaimed: "Brother Nekik, I'll fish out that Trap for you; I'm sure it's there--my good nose lines the track of a Man straight to the hole." In less than two minutes he triumphantly swung a steel-jawed thing up on the bank. "There, what did I tell you!" he boasted proudly. "But the ring is on a stout root or stick--cut it off, Umisk, with your strong chisel-teeth, and Fisher will carry it up that big hollow Poplar and cache it in a hole."

"I will, if you spring the jaws first," agreed Fisher.

Otter was overjoyed. "This is fine!" he cried; "I'll be back in a minute!" and he darted down the Slide as an Indian throws the snake-stick over the snow.

"What fine sport!" remarked Carcajou, when Nekik came up again, shaking the water from his strong, bristled mustache.

"Shall we have some games?" suggested the King. "I'll give a fat Pheasant to the one who slides down Nekik's chute best--that is, of course, barring Nekik himself."

"But the water, Your Majesty!" interposed Pisew.

"I don't want to wet my feet," pleaded Wapistan, the Marten; "if you'll make the race up a tree I will willingly join."

"So will I!" concurred Fisher.

"Or three miles straight over the hill," suggested Blue Wolf.

"Make it a wrestling match!" said Carcajou.

"No, no," declared Black King. "No one need go in the hole, of course. When you come to the bottom, spring over to the ice--that will be part of the game."

After much wrangling and discussion they all agreed to try it. Mink went first, being more familiar with slides, for he had a little one of his own. He did it rather nicely, but forgetting to jump at the bottom, dove into the water.

"That rules you out!" decided the King. "You left the course, you see. Go on, Rof!"

Blue Wolf fixed himself gingerly at the upper end of the Slide, and, at the last minute, decided to take it sitting, riding down on his great haunches. This worked first-rate, until the ice was reached. Rof was going with so much speed by this time, that he couldn't gather for a spring; his hind quarters slipped through the hole, which, being just about his size, caused him to wedge tight. He gave a roar of surprise that made the woods ring, for the stream was icy cold. "Keep your nose above water or you'll drown, old Bow-wow," piped Jay.

[Illustration: ROF WAS GOING WITH SO MUCH SPEED, ... THAT HE COULDN'T GATHER FOR A SPRING.]

It took the combined strength of Beaver and Carcajou to pull the grumbling animal out. "By the White Spot on my Tail," laughed Black King, "but I thought for a time you were going to win. Your turn, Pisew." Lynx made a grimace of dislike, for his cat nature revolted at the thought of water, but he crept on to the slide with nervous steps.

"You won't get in the hole," jeered Jack; "your feet are too big."

Pisew tried it standing up, with arched back, just for all the world like a cat on a garden fence. As he neared the bottom at lightning speed, confusion seized him; he tried to spring, but only succeeded in throwing a half somersault, and plunged head first into the water. The Jay fairly screamed with delight, and hopped about on his perch overhead in a perfect ecstasy of fiendish enjoyment. "Didn't scorch his tongue a bit!" he cried. "Give him the tail feathers of the Pheasant to dry his face with, oh, Your Majesty! Ha, ha, ha! Pe-he-e-e!" Pisew scrambled out filled with morose anger.

"That's another failure," adjudged the King. "Who is next?"

"Carcajou's turn!" instigated Whisky-Jack. "He knows all about sliding up and down chimneys--he'll win, sure!"

"I will try it," grunted the fat, little Chap; "but if you make fun of me, Jack, I'll wring your neck first chance I get."

Wolverine shuffled clumsily to the starting post, studied the Slide critically for a minute with his little snake-like eyes, then deliberately turned over on his back, and prepared for the descent.

"Tuck in your ears!" shouted Whisky Jack. Now this was an insult. Carcajou's ears were so very short that they were generally supposed to have been cut off for stealing. However, Wolverine started, tail first, holding his head up between his fore-paws to judge distances. When he struck the bottom, his powerful hind-feet jammed into the snow, and the speed of his going threw him safely over on the ice, landing him right side up on all-fours.

"Capital! Capital!" yapped Black King, patting his furred hands together in approval. "That will be pretty hard to beat. Skunk, you're a clever little Fellow, see if you can make a tie of it with Carcajou." Sikak moved up to the Slide with a peculiar rocking-horse-like gallop. Taking his cue from Carcajou he decided to go down the same way. Now, in the excitement of the thing the animals had gathered close to the Slide, lining it on both sides.

"Cranky little White-streak!" exclaimed Whisky-Jack; "why don't you make a speech before you start."

Skunk had never travelled in this shape before, and was nervous. During his delay over getting a straight start, Carcajou and Mink, half-way down, got into an altercation about a good seat that each claimed.

"Keep it, then, Glutton!" whined Sakwasew, starting across the chute. As he did so, Skunk got away rather prematurely, coming down with the speed of a snow-slide off a roof. He struck Mink full amidship, and thinking it was a diabolical trick on the part of the others, developed an angry odour that would have put a Lyddite shell to shame.

A wild scramble took place.

"Fat Hens!" shrieked Black King, as he fled through the Forest, his long brush trailing in the snow.

"I'm choking!" screamed Carcajou. "By the power of all Forest Smells, was there ever such a disgraceful Chap on the face of the Earth;" and he scurried away with his short legs, just for all the world like a Bear Cub.

Fisher climbed a tree in hot haste, as did Marten. Mink dove in the Otter's hole and disappeared; but with him he carried the evil thing, for he was full of the blue halo that vibrated from his skunk-smirched coat. "I shall never be able to go home any more," he moaned; "my relatives will kill me."

Even Jay clasped one claw over his nose and flew wildly through the forest, almost knocking out his brains against branches. In ten seconds there was nobody left on the ground but Otter and poor little white-striped Skunk. The collision had sent him rolling over and over down to the ice bottom of the stream. He got up, shook himself, used some very bad animal language, and slunk away to his family, to tell them of the trick Carcajou and Mink had played him.

"That Glutton was afraid I'd win the Pheasant," he confided to Mrs. Sikak; "but I broke up the party, anyway."

Otter was wandering about disconsolately through the woods, declaiming to the trees that his Slide was ruined for all time to come, and he really wished the Trap had ended his days.

THE TRAPPING OF WOLVERINE

When Francois missed the Beaver trap that had been placed in the dam, and that Umisk had taken for his sons to study, also the two set on Otter's slide, it made him furious. He knew Wolverine must have cached them. Once before he had been forced to give up a good Marten Road because of the relentless ingenuity of this almost human-brained animal; but it would be different this time, the Half-breed declared--he would make a fight of it.

"I keel me dat Carcajou!" he exclaimed emphatically over and over again to The Boy. "Dat Debil ob de Wood he eat my bait, an' cac'e de Trap, an' come an' sit dere by de door an' listen what we talk. I see de track dis mornin'."

The very night Francois made this boast, Wolverine came and entirely appropriated the remaining hind-quarter of his Caribou from the roof. When the Half-breed discovered this fresh mark of his enemy's energetic attention he became inarticulate with ire.

"Why don't you try the strychnine on him?" asked Roderick.

"Dat no use," declared the enraged Trapper; "when I put poison in de bait, Carcajou come, smell him, den he do some dirty trick on it for make me swear. But I catc' him soor--I put de gun wid pull-string."

He spent the greater part of the next day arranging a muzzle-loading shot gun, with a trade ball in it, for the destruction of the animal who had stolen his venison. Francois had seen Wolverine's own private little path for coming up the bank of the Pelican, and on this he staked down the gun and put some pine logs on either side, so that Carcajou must take the bait from in front. The gun was left cocked, with a string attached to the trigger; on the string, just at the muzzle, was tied a piece of Caribou meat.

Wolverine chuckled when he saw the arrangement. "Poor old Francois!" he muttered ironically: "this is really too bad; it's actual robbery to take that Bait--it's so easy."

Now this little wood-dweller had a most decided streak of vanity in his make-up. Like many really smart men, he liked to show off his cunning--that was his weakness. "This is a good chance to give some of the others an object lesson," he said to himself, sitting down to wait for an audience. Presently Blue Wolf and Lynx came in sight, jogging along together. "Eur-r-r-r!" said Wolf, hoarsely; "had any Eating this day, Gulo?"

"No appetite," declared Carcajou, getting up so the half-starved Lynx might see his well-rounded stomach.

"Most wise Lieutenant," smirked Pisew, "what wisdom hast thou originated this day?"

"That's a queer thing, isn't it?" remarked Carcajou, nodding his broad forehead towards the baited gun.

Blue Wolf looked, took a wide detour, and approached it from the side. The others followed in his footsteps.

"Years have given you sagacity, Mister Rof," commended Wolverine. "From the side always, eh? Danger sits on top, and Death waits in front."

"My nose finds a Bait!" answered Wolf.

"It's Meat!" added Pisew, working his mustached upper lip like a cat.

"I smell powder!" declared Carcajou, quietly.

"The evil breath of the Ironstick?" queried Blue Wolf. "Perhaps the White Death-powder makes that peculiar odour," he hazarded.

"No," asserted Carcajou; "Francois knows better than that: to smell that Bait costs nothing; to bite it makes a heavier price than either of us cares to pay. Francois knows that we smell first, and bite last; and if our noses detected aught amiss would we pull the string with our teeth?"

"Wise Lieutenant!" murmured Lynx.

"Cunning old Thief!" mused Wolf to himself.

"Do either of you food-hunters want it?" asked Carcajou.

"I'm not very hungry this morning," answered Blue Wolf.

"I discovered seven Deer Mice under a log not two hours ago," lied Pisew; "sweet, long-eared little Chaps they were, and quite fat from eating the seeds of the yellow-lipped Sunflower--most delicious flavour it gives to their flesh. My stomach is at peace for the first time in many days."

"Keep your eye open for the Breed-Man, then," commanded Wolverine; "I think I'd relish that Caribou steak--your Deer-Mice have given me an appetite." He tore the pine logs away from one side of the gun, examined the string critically, cut it with his sharp teeth just behind the bait, and devoured the fresh meat with great gusto, smacking his lips with a tantalizing suggestiveness of good fare.

"In case of accidents I think I'd better break up this Ironstick," he said. Seizing the hammer in his strong jaws, and placing his paws on the barrel and stock, he tore it off and completely demolished the old muzzle-loader.

"Well," yawned Wolf, stretching himself, "you're a match for the Man, I believe. I'm off, for I've got a long run ahead of me--the Pack gathers to-night at Deep Creek."

"What's the run--Stag?" asked Pisew, insinuatingly.

"Whatever it may be it will be all eaten," answered Rof; "so you needn't trail. Good-bye, Lieutenant," he barked, loping with powerful strides through the woods out of sight.

"I'll go with you, most wise Lieutenant," declared Pisew.

"Well, trot along in front," grunted Carcajou; "I want to fix the trail a bit." After they had walked for half an hour Wolverine stopped, and, cocking his eye up a slim pole which seemed to grow from the centre of a high Spruce stump, exclaimed, "Great-Eating! what in the name of Wiesahkechack is that?"

"Meat!" answered Pisew, looking at something which dangled from the top of the pole.

"It's Francois again," said Carcajou, sniffing at the stump.

"What a splendid cache," cried Lynx, admiringly; "nobody but Squirrel could climb that pole."

"But they might knock it down," declared Carcajou. "I have a notion to try."

"Better leave it alone," advised Pisew. "If it's Francois, there's something wrong."

"Carcajou doesn't take advice from a cotton-headed Cat," sneered the other. "Easy Killing! but I'm going up to see what it's like. I know that stump--it's hollow; there is no chance for a Trap there." It was about three feet high. Wolverine made a running jump, grabbing the top edge to pull himself up; as he did so something snapped. A howl of enraged surprise came from the little animal as he dangled with hind toes just touching the ground, and his fore-paws in a steel Trap which he had pulled over the side. The cunning Breed had blocked up his Trap on the inside of the hollow shell, where it was invisible from the ground.

"For the Sake of Security! don't make such a noise," pleaded Pisew.

"Fool-talker!" retorted Carcajou; "come and help me out of this fix."

"I can't open the Trap," objected Lynx; "why, it would take the strength of Muskwa to flatten its springs."

"Run to the King and ask for help, as is the law of the Boundaries," ordered Wolverine.

"Gently, Mister Lieutenant, gently; don't get so excited--keep cool."

"Wait till I get out of this," screamed Carcajou; "I'll warm your jacket."

"There, there," returned Lynx, "don't threaten me--don't abuse me, and I'll help you--"

"That's a good Pisew--hurry, please--Francois may come--"

"On one condition," added Lynx, sitting down on his haunches with deliberate self-possession.

"Hang the conditions!" blustered Carcajou--"talk of conditions with a Fellow's fingers in a steel Trap!"

"All the same, I'll only do it on one condition--when they talked the other day of making me King--"

"'_They_ talked,'" interrupted Carcajou; "nobody talked of making you King."

"_You_ didn't, I know, Lieutenant; but that's just what I want you to promise now, before I help you."

"I'll see you Snared first!" grunted Wolverine, snapping at the Trap chain which was fastened to the pole, until he screamed with pain.

"All right--I'm off! Francois will soon find you," declared Pisew.

"Come back!" cried the entrapped Animal. "What do you wish?"