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"STUDYING THE MAN AND HIS METHODS, TO THE END THAT LIFE SHOULD BE MADE MISERABLE FOR THIS TRESPASSER UPON ITS DOMAIN" (SEE NEXT PAGE)

THE FEUD ON SWIFTWATER

THE TRAPPER AND THE WOLVERENE

By WILLIAM GERARD CHAPMAN

A LOW-HUNG, coppery sun glimmered dully through the up-rearing, naked boles of pine and spruce and hemlock, laying long, purplish shadows across the whitecarpeted floor of the winter wood as the twilight deepened. The wild feathered life of the forest fluttered into nest or cranny or thicket, seeking safe haven from the night prowlers that would soon be abroad. Their sleepy twitterings, blending with the soft whisper of the trees, made a drowsy monotone that hung pleasantly on the cold, crisp air, until of a sudden it was hushed in a wave of silence as two terrifying forms came hurrying down twin aisles of the forest.

Nearly abreast, and loping along at a swift pace, their approach sent the tardiest dwellers of the wood palpitatingly to cover. The larger figure, in rough homespun, rabbit-skin cap, and high moccasins thrust into the thonged hold of snow

shoes, swept on as silently as the smaller, save for the crunch of his webbed footgear on the dry snow. The other, slightly to the rear of the man and hidden from his eyes by an artfully selected, twisting path that took advantage of every treetrunk and bush and shadow, was a squat, surly-visaged animal, reminiscent of both bear and marten. Its small, dim-sighted eyes, glowering evilly from low brows fringed thickly with hair, seldom left the man as the wolverene kept pace with him by a series of seemingly awkward movements, its back arching with the curious undulations of a measuring-worm as it jumped and shambled silently through the wooded maze.

The man was returning to his cabin after an inspection of one of his trap-lines, anger and humiliation writ flamingly upon his face as a result of what he had discovered, and a seething thirst for vengeance in

his heart. Constantly he swept his glance to right and left as he strode along. At times he stopped suddenly and turned, freezing into immobility while he peered back along his trail. But he could discern nothing of the black, ominous shape that on each occasion shrouded itself instantly within the impenetrable gloom of tree or bush and froze into an equal movelessness. The man felt, with the sixth sense of the woodsman, that he was being followed. A faint, but lively, shiver traveled up and down his spine and prickled at the roots of his hair-not a sensation of fear, but an uncanny premonition that malignant eyes were following his every move.

Without having heard the slightest sound of his companion of the trail, or so much as glimpsed its sinister shadow, he emerged from the timber at the tiny clearing in the fork of two ice-bound streams, and viewed the homely portal of his hut with a grunt of relief. Ordinarily he would have given but little thought to the affair, but to-day he was in a mood to be annoyed, for his mind was in a perturbed state over recent happenings on his trap-lines.

The wolverene halted at the edge of the clearing, flattening itself into perfect concealment at the roots of a low-spread balsam-fir. As the trapper approached the cabin he turned and shook his fist toward the black wall of trees in a mixture of anger and grim homage as he anathematized the clever miscreant who had played such havoc with his traps, and who was, he shrewdly surmised, eying him arrogantly from the dense growth. He was right in his conjecture, for the animal that had dogged his steps for miles and whose wicked little black eyes were appraising him maliciously from its hidden vantage was the same evil-dispositioned "Injun devil" that had made a mockery of his furtaking endeavors for several days past.

At his door the trapper scanned again the black edge of the trees, and the lines of his face curved into an expression of guile. "Jest you git busy to-morrer with the traps, old feller, me boy. Mebbe ye

'll find a surprise awaitin' ye!" With which cryptic remark he entered the cabin.

When Gabe Shaddick had come to the forks of the Swiftwater two weeks before, for a season of trapping, the wolverene instantly became aware of his arrival and set itself to the task, highly agreeable to its demon nature, of studying the man and his methods, to the end that life should be made miserable for this trespasser upon its domain.

On several occasions Gabe had felt the weird sensation of being followed and stared at by unfriendly eyes. Then one day he awoke swiftly to the menace that threatened his undertaking. Hardly a trap on the line that paralleled the east branch of the stream had been overlooked by a devastating agency whose tracks, for the first time, insolently mingled with his own and spelled plainly to the trapper the name of his opponent.

A marten "set" had been neatly uncovered, the trap sprung, and the bait stolen. Of his next set there was nothing to be seen. A disturbance of the snow and a few tufts of dark fur were sufficient evidence of what had occurred. The trap was nowhere in sight.

"Could n't even leave me the trap, drat him! That was a prime marten-fur he et up an' done me out of," he muttered.

Wise in the ways of the black thief, he followed a broad trail which penetrated the brush at right angles to the line. At the distance of several rods it entered the growth of a low, thick-foliaged spruce; and casting his gaze searchingly into the mass of green, Gabe was rewarded by a sight of the clog—a heavy billet of wood to which the end of the chain was fastened. Kicking off his snow-shoes he wallowed on hands and knees to the base of the bushy tree, pulled his trap from the mound of snow under which it was buried, and backed out, with remarks appropriate to the occasion. Resetting the trap at another spot, he continued his course along the line.

His mind was now prepared for any shock of discovery. He knew how thorough an "Injun devil" could be in its

career of mischief, and he was in nowise disappointed in his expectations. For each snare and deadfall, as well as trap, had been visited by the marauder, examined with crafty eye and paw, and robbed or

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"I'll git ye yet!" he growled, shaking a threatening fist aloft; and then his anger subsided as a grin persisted in breaking through the frown that seamed his face. "Ye 're a right smart varmint, sure 'nough," he conceded. with reluctant admiration; "hain't no other critter can hold a candle to ye fer downright cussedness, but ye 've got a brain that some humans might better. swop their own fer.

"Ye hain't agoin' to drive me off'n my trappin' grounds though," he asserted. "Me an' you'll fight this here thing out, an' see who 's boss o' the woods."

Gabe started on the trail back to camp, muttering his vexation as he went. He planned many schemes. for reprisal, and during the succeeding days put them to the test; but to no avail. His wily antagonist evidenced an ability to penetrate the secret of each well-planned trick to catch him unawares with a wisdom that seemed almost supernatural to the dismayed trapper. But the dogged nature of the backwoodsman held him to his determination to fight the affair to an issue, and the feud between man and beast continued unabated in energy and wit for the space of many weeks. However well planned his endeavors, Gabe failed to surprise his rival at his knavery.

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"A WEASEL IN ITS WINTER ERMINE, HELD IN THE FIRST TRAP, OCCUPIED HIM FOR A FEW MINUTES" (SEE NEXT PAGE)

demolished or stolen with a most uncanny proficiency. Gabe reset such of them as were not past further usefulness, recovering one more trap from its cache, this time a hollow log, and finally arrived at the end of the line, where he halted to give full expression to his thoughts. After his first outburst he had not had time-or breath-to do justice to his outraged feel

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"THE WOLVERENE CREPT SLOWLY AND CAUTIOUSLY TOWARD THE HARASSED BRUTE" (SEE PAGE 406)

could most easily be obtained, to wit, on one of the trap-lines that had engrossed his wicked attention for so many opulent days. A close scrutiny of the trail with eye and nose, and a careful reconnoitering of the cabin, told him that the venture was safe. A weasel in its winter ermine, held in the first trap, occupied him for a few brief minutes, but he was too fastidious to break his fast on such stringy and musty meat when better could doubtless be found. After he had torn the distant cousin of his tribe from the steel jaws and mangled it, he proceeded up the line, and had not gone far when he sniffed the delicious odor of frozen fish.

It lay in broken bits upon the smooth

him that danger lurked beneath so tempting a feast, and that the utmost circumspection was needed to obtain it without imperiling his freedom.

With the nicest caution, he advanced upon the flavory morsels, placing his feet with slow deliberation and sniffing the snow inquiringly. Suddenly he paused, for the tell-tale odor of iron came up to his nostrils through the powdery whiteness. He stretched out a paw and delicately scraped away the snow until the trap lay exposed, then bared his teeth in a snarl and sat back upon his haunches to gloat over the unmasked fraud.

As he did so, he shot into the air with an appalling screech, blended of fury and

fear. Half doubling upon himself in midjump, and alighting with savage claws unsheathed, he tore frantically with his forepaws at a clinging, biting thing of steel that had seized upon his short, hairy tail with a grip as cruel as that of his own jaws. For the trapper cunningly had supplemented his main set with a second. trap, which he had washed in lye and held in a smudge to destroy the scent of iron and human hands, and handled with gloves treated in the same manner. With infinite care to preserve the unsullied appearance of the snow surface, he had placed it where he thought the robber would stumble into it while engrossed in his designs upon the center trap. But it had hardly occurred to him that the animal would sit down upon it!

Writhing and springing about in his mad endeavors to free himself of the horrible appendage, the creature continued to claw wildly at the trap, and again and again seized it with his teeth and tried to crush it between his powerful jaws. But the awful thing clung despite his efforts, and bit into the bone of his tail the harder.

Real fear entered the heart of the wolverene for perhaps the first time in its dauntless career. An impulse to flee to the familiar refuge, to which so cumbersome a thing as a trap could not be expected to follow, was acted upon with suddenness, and the animal gave a mighty bound toward the trunk of an adjacent tree. As the chain tautened against the heavy clog, the trap was arrested in mid-air with a jerk that mere hair and skin could not survive, and the covering of the tail gave and slipped smoothly from the bone. The wolverene sprawled to the snow, released from the agonizing clutch, but at the expense of a smarting tailstump.

He turned and snarled ragefully at the fearsome thing that had torn him with its teeth and was so indifferent to his own, and backed slowly off, terror still possessing him. His appetite for frozen fish. was gone, and his arrogant assurance flown. He wanted nothing so much as to get away from the scene of his humiliation

and pain, and to seek a shelter where he could curl up and nurse his wound.

And his desire was heightened by the sound of gliding snow-shoes that suddenly traveled to his ears on the thin, frosty air. His glowering eyes shifted down the trail, and into them flamed an unquenchable hatred for the approaching master of the trap; then he turned reluctantly and stole silently away into the forest.

Gabe viewed the evidence of the wolverene's experience with both satisfaction and regret. The bunch of fur in the jaws of the trap made plain to him what had occurred.

"Put yer tail into it that time, did n't ye!" he chuckled, vastly pleased at the partial success of his stratagem. "Wish to blazes ye 'd put yer foot into it instead, yer thievin' varmint; there 'd be one less glutton in the woods to steal furs. Reckon that skinned tail o' yourn 's givin' ye somethin' to think about, though, an' mebbe ye 'll keep away from my traps fer a spell."

Gabe's elation over having outwitted the wiliest of the forest dwellers increased as several days passed without further signs of the animal. Apparently the fright and pain of its experience had caused it to withdraw from the field, and he congratulated himself upon the outcome. His catch of fur increased gratifyingly, and, if the take continued, the accumulation of skins in his shed by Christmas-time would make a sizable bale for packing into the settlement.

But the wolverene had not left the vicinity of the forks of the Swiftwater. Chastened, but sullen, he kept to his old haunts, giving the trap-lines, however, a wide berth. His temper, always of a surly, ungovernable quality was, if possible, made more undependable by the annoyance of a tail sensitive to the slightest friction. Therefore, when, about a week after the frozen fish had lured him to his undoing, he drifted across the zigzag trail of an animal dragging a trap and its hindering clog through the snow, he failed to be warned by the odor of wolf in the tracks and followed them in savage mood.

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