crossed the deep ravine and threw his three victims down side by side. He laughed at them, jeered them, and insulted them.
"By gar!" he growled. "Yo' fellers make me tired! Three two-dollaire skin,an' yo' make a bigger load dan forty mink, wort' free hundert dollaire! By gar! A man a tam fool, lug yo' fellers aroun'! By gar!"
French Louie cursed and blackguarded the wolves that he killed with fond emphasis and joyous exultation. Every time he killed a wolf he regarded it as a victory, a compliment to his own skill, a relief for his pent-in feelings.
To hear him talk, taking no notice of his triumphant tone, one would have supposed that wolves were the least worthy of his pursuits, that he obtained them by accident, and that his real efforts were concentrated on worth-while creatures—mink, marten, fisher, lynx, and the like. The fact was that French Louie would neglect all other game for the pleasure of circumventing a wolf, even if it were only an ignorant wolf-pup.
So French Louie drew out his skinning-knife, lamenting that he had to dull its blade on the coarse fibers of a hairy wolf-skin. He stripped the hides off as if he detested that work more than anything else in the world. All the way home to his main camp on Otter Bay he grumbled and cursed and shook his shaggy head, complaining about lugging such a heavy load for so small a recompense as the value of the skins and the government reward.
"By gar! A li'l' marten, one I put in my pocket, wort' more dan all dis backbreaker load!" he growled.
Nevertheless, when he had stretched his wolf-skins on great hoops, fleshed them, and hung them up under his fur-shed, he looked at them long and admiringly.
"By gar!" he grumbled. "By gar! Der is some satisfact' to keel sooch tam nuisances. By gar! Dat's right, ole feller!"
Some satisfaction? Why, if French Louie had to trap in a country where there were no wolves he would feel that he was like a little boy running up and down a brook across the middle of a farm. Not bears, nor lynx, nor fisher, nor foxes could bring one-half the pleasure to him that he found in "foolin' dem tam old wolfs!"
He did not content himself with merely hunting for wolves. He set traps for them. He had more wolf-traps in proportion to his line than any other trapper. His monkeying with mink, marten, muskrats, was strictly for commercial reasons. He liked the five dollars which a nice little black Canadian mink brought him. He was exuberant over a twenty-dollar stone-marten. He would dance a step or two when he ran into a lynx, especially when it was sitting quiet, not pulling a bit at a No. 1 mink-trap. Next to wolves he regarded a captured fisher with pleasure, because a fisher always tore up his trap cubbies and chewed everything in reach.
"By gar! Yo' tam fisher, yo' tam pekan! Yo' make a feller work! By gar! Yo' son of a goon! I feex yo'!" he would say, grimacing and jumping and growling, for he liked a fighting pekan.
Foxes he did not know what to think of. He despised them, and yet they surprised him with their little tricks. He would call a fox a muskrat, just to insult him, and then he would call him next brother to a wolf. Sometimes a fox would display great spirit, and again one would show no more judgment or heart than a rabbit.
His joy was great as he saw more and more that he was in a land of wolves. Wolves evidently dominated this country, just as rabbits or deer or foxes or skunks dominate the wild life of certain other localities.
"By gar! I do belief dat I foun' my wolf-pocket at las'!" French Louie grimaced and danced. "Wolfs—wolfs—wolfs! Everywhere is dem wolfs! By gar! Come deep snow, an' dem fellers get hongry—by gar! I bet dem tam wolfs like to set deir teeths into dem tough bones an' muscles dat I got! By gar! Wat dey miss in fat, I bet dey take op in consolation dat it's me! Well, I won't let no tam wolfs drive me out. Too mooch mink, too goot marten, fisher, fox, muskrats aroun'! By gar!"
Let the wolves drive him out? French Louie wouldn't have left that country if he didn't find a mink, a marten, or any other sign than that of wolves. All other trapping was to him as nothing, if he could not trap for wolves. Back on Pigeon River wolves had grown so scarce that he could hardly see a track there—and he would have stopped trapping altogether, if he had not found the country north and east of Otter Cove.
Wolves were not just wolves to French Louie. After he killed the three wolf-pups—seven or eight months old, perhaps ten months—the one that got away was an individual to him. The survivor held his hind legs in such a way that his hind paws turned in ever so little.