University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1915-08-25


hind Henri's tale of woe struck hin,
as important. and until midnight they
talked about the two strange wolves.
There is one big wolf an one
smaller" said Henri. "An' it is al
ways the big wolf who goes In an
fights the lynx | see that by the
snow just out of reach. an then when
the lynx is down, or dead, 1t jumps
in an helps tear it into pieces. All
that / know by the snow. Only once
have | seen where the smaller one
went in an fought with the other, an
then there was blood all about that
was not lynx blood; trailed the dew
lis mile by the dripping.
During the two weeks that followed.
Weyman found much to add to the
material of his book. Not a day
passed that somewhere along Henri's
trap-line they did not see the trails
of the two wolves. and Weyman OBJ
served that-as Henri had told him
the footprints were always two by
two, and never one by one. On the
third day they came to a trap that had
held a lynx, and at sight of what re-
mained Henri cursed in both French
and English until he was purple in the
face. The lynx had been torn until it's
pelt was practically worthless.
Weyman saw where the smaller
wolf had waited on its launches,
while its companion had killed the
lynx. He did not tell Henri all he
thought But the days that followed
convinced him more and more that he
had found the most dramatic exempli-
fication of his theory. Back of this
mysterious tragedy of the trap-line
there was a reason.
Why did the two wolves not detroy
the fisher-cat, the ermine and the
marten? Why was their feud with the
lynx alone?
Weyman was strangely thrilled He
was a lover of wild things, and for
thai reason he never carried a gun.
And when he saw Henri placing pois-
on-bait, for the two marauders. he
shuddered, and when, day after day.
he saw that these poison-baits were
Untouched, he rejoiced. Something in
his own nature went out in sympathy
to the heroic outlaw of the trap-line
who never failed to give battle to the
lynx Nights in the cabin he wrote
down his thoughts and discoveries of
the day. One night he turned sud
denly on Henri
Henri, doesn't it ever make you
sorry to kill so many wild things?"
he asked.
Henri stared and shook his head
81 kill t'ousand an t'ousand." he
said 81 kill t'ousand more"
"And there are twenty thousand
others Just like you in this northern
quarter of the continent-all killing.
killing for hundreds of years back. and
yet you can't kill out wild life. The
war of Man and the Beast, you might
call it. And. if you could return five
hundred years from now, Henri, you'd
still find wild life here. Nearly all the
rest of the world is changing, but you
can't change these almost impenetra-
BILE thousands of square miles Of
ridges and swamps and forests. The
railroads won't come here, and |, for
one, thank God for that Take all the
great prairies to the west, for in
stance. Why, the old buffalo trails
are still there, plain as day-and yet.
towns and cities are growing up ev-
erywhere Did you ever hear of
North Battleford?"
"Is she near Montreal or Quebec?"
Henri asked.
Weyman smiled, and drew a photo
graph from his pocket. 1t was the
picture of a girl.
"No. It's far to the west, in Sas-
Seven years ago | used
to 60 up there every year, to shoot
prairie chickens, coyotes and elk.
There wasn't any North Battleford
the glorious prairie, hun
dreds and hundreds of square miles OF
It. There was a single shack on the
Saskatchewan River, where North
Battleford now stands, and l used to
stay there In that shack there was
little girl, twelve years old. We used
to go out hunting together-for |
used to kill things in those days. And
the little girl would cry sometimes
when / killed. and I'd laugh at her.
Then a railroad came, and then
another, and they Joined near the
shack, and all at once town sprang
up. Seven years ago there was only
the shack there, Henri. Two years
ago there were eighteen hundred peo-
pie. This year, when I came through,