During the Indian's whitefish month — the white man's

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202 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA

November — the weather has become colder and colder ; but the
trapper never indulges in the big log fire that delights the heart
of the amateur hunter. That would drive game a week's tracking
from his course. Unless he wants to frighten away nocturnal
prowlers, a little chip fire, such as the fishermen of the Banks use
in their dories, is all the trapper allows himself.
First snow silences the rustling leaves. First frost quiets the flow
of waters. Except for the occasional splitting of a sap-frozen tree,
or the far howl of a wolf-pack, there is the stillness of death. And
of all quiet things in the quiet forest, the trapper is the quietest.
As winter closes in the ice-skim of the large lakes cuts the bark
canoe like a knife. The canoe is abandoned for snow-shoes and
the cotton tepee for more substantial shelter.
If the trapper is a white man. he now builds a lodge near the
best hunting-ground he has foui£d. Around this he sets a wide
circle of traps at such distances their circuit requires an entire
day, and leads the trapper out in one direction and back in another,
without retracing the way. Sometimes such lodges run from valley
to valley. Each cabin is stocked; and the hunter sleeps where
night overtakes him. But this plan needs two men; for if the
traps are not closely watched, thcv wolverine will rifle away a price-
less fox as readily as he eats a ^abby muskrat. The stone fire-
place stands at one end. Moss, clay, and snow chink up the logs.
