way of saving time on a journey. I left Simmo to go on down the
river, while I followed the little byway curiously. There is
nothing more fascinating in the woods than to go on the track
of the wild things and see what they have been doing.

But alas! mine were not the first human feet that had taken the
journey. Halfway across, at a point where the path ran over a
little brook, I found a deadfall set squarely in the way of
unwary feet. It was different from any I had ever seen, and was
made like this: {drawing omitted}

That tiny stick (trigger, the trappers call it) with its end
resting in air three inches above the bed log, just the right
height so that a beaver or an otter would naturally put his foot
on it in crossing, looks innocent enough. But if you look sharply
you will see that if it were pressed down ever so little it would
instantly release the bent stick that holds the fall-log, and
bring the deadly thing down with crushing force across the back
of any animal beneath.

Such are the pitfalls that lie athwart the way of Keeonekh the
otter, when he goes a-courting and uses Musquash's portage to
shorten his journey.

At the other end of the portage I waited for Simmo to come round
the bend, and took him back to see the work, denouncing the
heartless carelessness of the trapper who had gone away in the
spring and left an unsprung deadfall as a menace to the wild
things. At the first glance he pronounced it an otter trap. Then
the fear and wonder swept into his face, and the questions into