It was winter. Shekapeo had returned to his hunting grounds in the region of the Lake of Steep Shores. Near him, this year, was camped the family of young Good-ground who was at this season trapping in that section of his hereditary hunting grounds for marten. The territories of the two families adjoined each other, though for several years each had been operating on the more distant tracts, with the idea of allowing the intervening zone to become replenished with the fur-bearing animals. Old Shekapeo and young Good-ground knew perfectly well where their respective bounds lay. During the winter they occasionally visited one another and sometimes planned to exchange privileges in each other’s grounds. When, for instance, one year bear had been abundant in Shekapeo’s district, owing to a forest fire in the month of flowers which had left in its wake an exceptional abundance of berries, the same winter on young Good-ground’s territory, caribou had wandered in unusual numbers. Then they had allowed each other to cross the landmarks. Good-ground took toll on many of Shekapeo’s bears, and Shekapeo took what he needed of Good-ground’s caribou.
It happened late in the winter in the month of great cold that several members of Good-ground’s family were taken sick with coughs and aching limbs. Sickness added to Good-ground’s duties, and often he was prevented from following his line of traps properly, by the necessity of remaining at camp himself. One trip when he started to visit his ten traps, which were strung at a distance of about two miles apart along the banks of the River of Poplars, he found himself at the ninth trap by the end of the second day. So bad had been the conditions of travel, and his own feelings so oppressed, that, late this afternoon, he made himself a little fire where he had scraped away the snow with one of his snowshoes, and boiled himself a pot of tea. Near the fire lay his good dogs Ntohum and Kawabshet, “My Hunter” and “Whitey,” names descended through many generations of canines. They were worn out and tired, from pulling the toboggan through the soft, deep snowdrifts. The nine traps had yielded a few furs, yet most of them were empty. The promise of bad weather added to the trouble. To the northeast a heavy bank of lead-colored sky appeared above the pointed tops of the vast spruce forest. Fitful blasts of wind came occasionally from the same quarter, growing more frequent during the afternoon and causing Good-ground many times to turn his head about and look behind, then urge the dogs with a few sharp words to greater exertions.
Now, smoking his pipe of stone, which several times he refilled with dry tobacco obtained from the Post so far away, his eyes rested first upon his fagged dogs, then upon the slowly spreading pall of gray, northward above the hills. The question of the tenth trap was resting heavily upon Good-ground’s mind. Might there be anything held fast in its iron jaws, or would the machine be empty before his disheartened gaze, should he gather his forces together and press on against the rising wind for another three hours? The price to pay in risk to himself and his animals for whatever might be caught there, would be, indeed, the highest. With depleted provisions through another afternoon of struggle against the blizzard which was surely coming, a question arose in his experienced mind as to the actual possibility of its accomplishment. Should he turn about now and go down with the wind to the little shelter camp where he could spend the night, back on Round Lake, he would then be within a short day’s voyage of his home camp. There his sick family, brothers, sisters and mother, were comfortably and snugly housed in their warm tent, roofed tightly with birch-bark and lined with caribou skins, making it warm as the inside of his fur-lined mitten. But what if trap number ten should contain an animal, perhaps a sable or even a black fox, whose pelt would bring the profit he so badly needed?
Having filled his pipe several times, and cleaned it with the blade of bone which he carried tied to his tobacco bag, it seemed as if Good-ground could not decide. Finally, with a motion of determination, he plunged his hand into the bag, which contained the carcass of a hare reserved for his supper. With a few cuts of his knife he got out the shoulder blade of the animal, and he removed the clinging flesh by tearing it off with his teeth till the bone was clean and brown; then upon the end of a split stick he held the hare’s shoulder bone before the heat of his fire, and raised his voice in a low melody which came from between slightly opened lips. “Ka na ka na aa ka na he.” While he sang, the bone, affected by the heat, grew black toward the center; finally a segment with a little crack split from the center and ran toward the edge, breaking through the bone and causing it to burn away on one of its outer sides. The divination was complete. The spirit of the hare had told him that his voyage would be unsuccessful.
Now, with a few deft and decided motions, Good-ground cleaned out his pipe, replaced several articles which he had removed from his bag, adjusted his snowshoes by kicking his feet into the stiffened loops, and squared about toward the south, pulling the sled around on its runners till it, too, pointed backwards along the trail over which he had, thirty minutes ago, tramped down the snow to make a path for his dogs. The animals needed no human urging to tighten their traces and drag the sled forward in a trail, which even now was being blown over with drifting snow coming slant-wise through the forest on a furious wind. Kiwedin, the north wind, was now going to rule the world of the people of the north. Whatever thought Good-ground had a while ago as to what the tenth trap might have yielded him had he gone to it, faded from his mind with the satisfaction that he was obeying his dream animal, and that probably he would reach his home camp in time to escape the suffering which he knew he would have met had he gone on to learn what trap number ten contained. His forebodings were not without ground. It was with difficulty that he reached his little camp station that night, helped along by the wind at his back. His out-trail was now completely covered, but it had been possible for him to run ahead of his dogs and break the snow for them with his snowshoes. That night at his station he tried again his “mutnshawan” and the bone broke in the same way as before. This time the crack in the surface of the shoulder blade zig-zagged off in the direction of the home camp, a sure indication that this was to be the direction of travel next day.
By the time the late northern dawn had lighted up the trail sufficiently for him to follow it, Good-ground had fed his dogs and himself on the remaining carcasses of the few beasts that he had taken, in coming up to his line of traps. By dark, forcing his way through growing drifts with the wind still at his back, he silently wound into the cleared space, near the center of which stood the three bark tents with their wisps of smoke driven horizontally from the poles, that for almost nine months of the year he called home. Several little fox-bred mongrel dogs limped out on the beaten footpaths from one of the tents, and with wheezy coughs announced the return of the son and brother to the females within the enclosure. They were building up the fire and preparing a stew of hare and smoked caribou meat. Good-ground lifted the skin hanging before the door, bent under its low arch, and stepped toward the fire, laying his game bag on the boughs near the knees of his oldest sister. The glances at his face and his return glance showed that all was well, they felt, while all were still alive. And smiles lighted their faces as the girl brought the contents of one of the packs from the sled and opened it before their eyes, though it contained only medium pelts and carcasses only large enough to go into the stew-pot for to-morrow’s dinner.
The blizzard raged, the weak and sick ones got worse before they got better, and several weeks passed before Good-ground could muster the strength, and afford the time to harness his dogs again and move along the trap line. Smoked caribou flakes, hare carcasses, and a small portion of flour had carried them through the short