Jan went over the Churchill trail, and then swung southward along the
Hasabala, where the country was crisscrossed with trap-lines of the
half-breeds and the French. First, he struck the cabin of Croisset and
his wife, and left part of his cloth. Then he turned westward, while
Croisset harnessed his dogs and hurried with a quarter of the roll to
the south. Between the Hasabala and Klokol Lake, Jan found three other
cabins, and at each he left a bit of the red cotton. Forty miles to
the south, somewhere on the Porcupine, were the lines of Henry
Langlois, the post's greatest fox-hunter. On the morning of the third
day, Jan set off in search of Langlois; and late in the afternoon of
the same day he came upon a well-beaten snow-shoe trail. On this he
camped until morning. When dawn came he began following it.
He passed half a dozen of Langlois' trap-houses. In none of them was
there bait. In three the traps were sprung. In the seventh he found
the remains of a red fox that had been eaten until there was little
but the bones left. Two houses beyond there was an ermine in a trap,
with its head eaten off. With growing perplexity, Jan examined the
snow-shoe trails in the snow. The most recent of them were days old.
He urged on his dogs, stopping no more at the trap-houses, until, with
a shrieking command, he brought them to a halt at the edge of a
clearing cut in the forest.
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