“The sun was, may be, an hour high, when lookin’ along the line of marked trees, I saw a black animal come trotting mighty softly towards the trap I was watchin’.  I knew him at once.  He was a black fox, and I knew that he was the gentleman that had been makin’ free with my property for the last few days.  He trotted up to the trap, and walked carefully around it, nosin’ out towards the bait, but keepin’ out from under the pole.  He seemed to understand what that pole meant, and that if it fell on him, he’d be very likely to be hurt.  After a little, he trotted out to the other end of the pole, and gettin’ on to it, walked carefully along to within ten or twelve feet of the bait; if he didn’t begin jumpin’ up and down till he sprung the trap, you may shoot me.  When he’d done that job, he went back, and gettin’ hold of the bait with his teeth, drew it out and began very cooly to eat it.  By this time I’d brought my rifle to bear upon the gentleman, but I gave him a little law, to see what his next move would be.  After he’d finished the bait, and found there warn’t any more to be come at, he stretched himself on his belly along the ground, and began lickin’ his paws, and passing them over his cheeks, as you’ve seen a cat do.  After he’d washed his face awhile, he sat himself down on his haunches, curled his long bushy tail around his feet, and looked about as if considerin’ what he should do next.  Just then I paid my respects to him, and as my rifle broke the stillness of the forest, he turned a double summerset, and after kickin’ around a little, laid still.  I came down from my perch, and took the gentleman to the shanty and added his hide to those of the martins I’d taken.  My traps warn’t disturbed after that, and I carried home a pack of furs that bro’t me near two hundred dollars.”

CHAPTER XXXI.

OUT OF THE WOODS—­THE THOUSAND ISLANDS—­CAPE VINCENT—­BASS FISHING HOME—­A SEARCHER AFTER TRUTH—­AN INTERRUPTION—­FINIS.

We floated quietly down the Rackett, carrying our boats around the falls, shooting like an arrow down the rapids, or gliding along under the shadows of the gigantic forest trees that line the long, calm reaches of that beautiful river.  We shook hands and parted with our boatmen at the pleasant village of Pottsdam, where we arrived the second evening after leaving Tupper’s Lake.  We found our baggage, and it was a pleasant thing to change our long beards for shaved faces, and our forest costume for the garniture of the outer man after the fashion of civilization.  We took the cars for Ogdensburgh, and the next morning found us steaming up the majestic St. Lawrence, towards that paradise of fishermen, the Thousand Islands.  We stopped a couple of days at Alexandria Bay, and passed on to Cape Vincent, a beautiful village situated a mile or two below where the river takes its departure from the broad lake beyond.  This pleasant little town is built upon a wide sweep of tableland, overlooking