Connie Morgan in the Fur Country

wn to the last item Connie viewed the result with a frown. "It's going to take two trips to pack all that st

din' for?" que

ered the boy. "I don't know just where-a

on't make no great difference. What put i

e trapping I'm interested in. I want to

ol

-mai

ok his head

ere's any gold there?" he asked. "'G

an' storm ridden. An' as for trappin' you'll find nothin' there to trap but foxes this time of year, an' you won't be able to do any prospectin' till summer.

he Coppermine," he began, but the fa

to do nothin' that it ain't in reason to do. There's a deal of difference between a determination to stick to a thing an' see it through in the face of all odds when the thing

," agreed Connie, aft

mewheres between the Blackwater and Lake Ste. Therese. Ought to be plenty of caribou in there too, an' what with dropp

t from here?"

of the Bear Lake Indians in with some fish from the Fisheries. They're due now. You can hire them for guides. The

Great Bear Lake, and for a certain band of Indians that had established their camp upon the riv

their dog teams to make the trip. The journey was uneventful enough, with only one storm to break the monotony of steady

ting a low knoll covered with a dense growth of spruce. Connie paid off the guides with an order on the Hudson's Bay Company, and hardly had they disappeared before he and 'Meri

l sheet iron stove with several lengths of pipe, a double window-small to be sure, but provided with panes of glass-and enough planking for a small sized door and door frame. Although the snow all about them showed innumerable tracks of the fur bearers, the two paid no attention to them until the

toward the pile of steel traps of assorted sizes that lay in the corner. "We'll be setting them today, Joe. The fox tracks are

t to git de bait. Dat ain' no goo

And where do we ge

et 'bout wan hondre snare for de rabbit. We tak' de lee

aps with us? We could bait 'em

laugh an' run away. Same lak de fish-she say: 'De fish b'long in de wataire. How he git t'rough de ice an' sit on de snow, eh?' An' den she run 'way an' laugh som' mor'. We ain' goin' trap no fox yet

aths of the rabbits, and how to secure each snare to the end of a bent sapling, or tossing pole, which, when released by the struggles of the rabbit from the notch that held it down, would spring upright and jerk the little animal h

ing," said Connie, as the Indian placed th

a natural position beneath the low-hanging branches of a young spruce and proceeded to set a heavier snare with a larger loop. The setting of this snare was slightly different from the setting of the rabbit snares, for instead of a tossing pole the snare was secured to the middle of a clog, or stout stick about two inches in diameter and four feet long. The ends of this clog were then supported upon two forked sticks in such manner that th

ten-dat de bes' way," explained 'Merican Joe, as they worked their

it skin and sticks and brush so arranged that in order to r

Frank E.

upward by the roots of a fallen tree. The thing that caught the boy's attention was a round hole in the snow-a hole hardly larger in diameter than a silver quarter, and edg

dig um out. We git plenty meat-ple

g the heavy rifle?" Connie asked. "We can't k

half-mile from camp. Tomor' we got plenty bait, we set de marten trap. We skin de bear tonight we save wan whole day." As he talked, the Indian felled a small birch and trimmed

ve killed several bears, and there was a time or two when a

t'ink de grizzly com' so far from de montaine. Di

now into good solid footing for a space of ten feet or more about the airhole. This done, they

we bang um good." 'Merican Joe continued to ram his pole into the snow where he had felt the yielding mass of the bear's body, all the time haranguing the be

Connie to measure two feet between the ears. The boy heard the sharp crack of the weapon as it struck the skull, and the next instant he heard the club crashing through the limbs of a small spruce. The infuriated bear had caught it fairly with a sweep of his giant paw.

wn with all his force upon the middle of the brute's spine. The feel of the blow was good as the keen blade sank to the helve. The next instant the ax was jerked from his hands and the boy turned to collide with 'Merican Joe, who had recovered his club and was rushing in to renew the attack. Both went sprawling upon the trodden snow, and before they could recover their feet the bear was almost upon them. They sprang clear, the Indian waiting with upraised club, but the bear advanced slowly, ripping and tearing at the snow with his huge forepaws with their claws as

ood looking down upon the carcass

k bear that don't like to f

an' dog feed, an' de good meat, an' de bigger skin, an' we git mor', w'at you call, excite!" He placed his foot upon the head of the dead bear. "Dat too b

r while Connie fastened on his own rackets and hit out for the cabin to procure the toboggan and dogs, and an extra pair of snowshoes. An hour later he returned, just as 'Merican Joe was stripping the hide from the hi

r are you doing

y. "Mus' hang up de skull right

hy

r git kill. He t'ink dat bear ain' wake up yet, or else he hide in de den. If de skull ain' hang up she git cover up wit' leaves, or sink in de swamp, an' Sah-ha-lee Tyee no kin fin'. But, w'en he see skull hang up, he say: 'De Injun

an and by the thin light of the little stars they started the dogs and wended their way across the n