The day following the departure of Tom and Jack from the camp of the
_Yukon Rover_, Sandy decided that he would take a stroll along the trap
line for some little distance to see if any of the smaller traps,
interspersed with the big box traps for catching the live foxes, had
caught anything. Before he departed he carefully fed the animals in the
“kennels.”
This done, he wrapped himself up as warmly as possible in a thick
parkee, heavy lumbermen’s boots and a cap that came down over his ears.
Before leaving he took care to write a note and leave it on the table in
the cabin, informing the two partners briefly where he had gone and what
had taken place during their absence, in case they should return before
he got back again.
When all this had been attended to, Sandy filled a haversack with food
and packed a small aluminum kettle and set out on snowshoes on his
solitary travels. He wondered what his companions were doing and what
success they had had in their pursuit of the thief. The boy felt
lonesome without his chums, but as he made his way over the crunching
snow the keen air brightened him up and raised his spirits considerably.
Since Tom and Jack had left, nothing to cause alarm had occurred, and
although Sandy had passed an anxious night, he had seen nothing to
indicate that any further harm was meditated to the valuable live things
now left in his sole care.
The traps were strung in a regular line, whose general direction was
marked by blazed trees and here and there some piled rocks. Near to the
_Yukon Rover’s_ mooring place there were no box traps. These were
stationed far back in the remoter districts, for the valuable foxes they
were after were wild, shy creatures, seldom coming within miles of a
spot where they could detect the presence of human kind.
At the first trap Sandy found a white weasel. The bait, the head of a
hare, was intact. The luckless weasel had not even had the satisfaction
of a meal.
Sandy placed the little creature in his pocket, not without
disappointment. The Bungalow Boys’ traps, the steel ones, that is, were
set for food, such as hares and rabbits. They did not care to capture
weasels and ermine particularly, although red foxes, which have a habit
of scaring away the more valuable varieties, were welcome to their
traps.
Tom and Jack, as we know, had already encountered the track of a
wolverine. It was now Sandy’s turn to come across the funny, bear-like
imprints of one of these destructive creatures.
“Whist!” he exclaimed, as he saw it, “no more animals in the traps the
noo! A wolverine has a bigger appetite than a cormorant. They’re the
real game hogs, all right.”
As he had expected, the next trap showed plentiful evidences of the
wolverine’s visit. All that was left of the marten that had been caught
in it was some bits of skin and about an inch of the tail. Bloodstains
on the snow around the trap showed where the wolverine had enjoyed a
meal at the expense of the young trappers.
“Pretty expensive feeder,” mused Sandy to himself. “So far this
glutton’s meals have cost about thirty dollars in the value of skins
destroyed. Nothing cheap about him.”
The boy trudged along over the snow, the creaking of his shoes as he
advanced being the only sound that broke the oppressive stillness of the
frozen wilderness. In spite of himself the boy felt the vast silence and
loneliness like a weight laid upon his mind. So far as he knew, he was
the only human being within miles. It made him feel very tiny, almost
ant-like, to think of the minute speck his body must make as he toiled
onward amidst the white desolation spread all about him.
At noon he paused, and seating himself under a tall “Rampick” that
upreared its gaunt form blackly against the snow, he ate the lunch he
had brought with him. Then he resumed his journey, intending to turn
back again and make for camp after about an hour’s more travel. He
figured that this would bring him back to the camp by nightfall.
As he followed up the traps he noticed that beside the ravages of the
wolverine other tracks began to appear in the snow, telling of the
presence of animals only less welcome.
Tracks that the boy recognized as the footprints of wolves were
plentiful about the traps devastated by the wolverine, or perhaps by the
wolves themselves.
The sight sent a thrill through him in spite of himself. Sandy had never
gotten over his dread of wolves. He would never forget his first sight
of the gaunt, gray creatures that he had seen hunting in a pack some
weeks before. Even in dreams he could still see their foamy fangs, gaunt
flanks and lean, active bodies with their sharp, avid heads and blazing
yellow eyes.
At the sight of the tracks, which were apparently recent, an uneasy
feeling possessed him. The wolves were abroad, possibly in his immediate
vicinity. He glanced around him. About half a mile away, at the summit
of a snow-covered rise, was a big pile of rocks heaped up as if they had
been some giant’s playthings left in jumbled confusion. Beyond lay a
dark little wood of balsam and fir. Sandy was still looking at this
latter and meditating whether or not to visit the traps he knew were set
in under the shadows of the somber-looking trees, when his ear was
arrested by a sudden sound.
It rang through the silence like a clarion. He recognized it instantly
and his nerves thrilled as he heard.
It was the cry of a wolf pack coming from the timber patch. Sandy half
turned, uncertain whether to keep on or make a retreat.
As he hesitated, from the wood there issued several lean-flanked, gray
creatures, whose forms he knew only too well.
They were the leaders of the pack. Behind them, helter-skelter, came a
tumbling, racing-mass of open-fanged creatures.
The leaders spied the boy, halted an instant and then, with fierce,
short barks, headed straight for him.