Once a bull-elk, nearly a six-footer, but he loomed large as an elephant, came clacking past between the ranked tree-boles, stopping a moment to straddle a sapling and browse; while the wolverine, sitting motionless and wide-legged, watched him.  Once a lynx, with its eternal, set grin, floated by, half-seen, half-guessed, as if a wisp of wood mist had broken loose and was floating about.  Once a fox, somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to match the whiteness of its surroundings, finicked up one of the still, silent forest lanes towards him, stopped, faced half-round, sat “frozen” for a fraction, and vanished as if it were a puff of wind-caught snow. (And, really, one had no idea till now that the always apparently lifeless forest could have been so full of life in the dark hours.)

But all these things made no difference to the wolverine, to Gulo, though he “froze” with habitual care to watch them—­for your wild creature rarely takes chances.  Details must never be overlooked in the wild.  He dug on, and in digging came right to the cache, roofed and anchored all down, safe beyond any invasion, with tree-trunks.  And—­and, mark you, not being able to pull tree-trunks out of the ground, and being too large to squeeze between them, he gnawed through one!  Gnawed through it, he did, and came down to the bazaar below.

So far, he had been only beast.  Now we see why I said he had more brains than were good for any animal except man.

He bit through the canvas, or whatever it was that protected the cached articles.  He got his head inside.  He felt about purposefully, and backed out, dragging a trap with him.  With it he removed into the inky shadows, and it was never found again.

He returned.  He thrust his head in a second time, got hold of something, and backed out.  It was another trap, and with it he vanished also; and it, too, was never found.  He returned, and went, and a third trap went with him.

The fourth investigation revealed an ax.  It he partly buried.  The fifth yielded a bag of flour, which he tore up and scattered all over the place.  The sixth inroad produced a haunch of venison, off which he dined.  The seventh showed another haunch, and this he buried somewhere unseen in the shades.  The eighth overhaul gave up some rope, in which he nearly got himself entangled, and which he finally carried away, bitten and frayed past use.  The ninth search rewarded him with tea, which he scattered, and bacon, which he buried.

What he could not drag out, he scattered.  What he failed to remove, he defiled.  And, at last, when he had made of the place, not an orderly cache, but a third-rate debacle, he sauntered, always slouching, always grossly untidy, hump-backed, stooping, low-headed, and droop-tailed, shabbily unrespectable, out into the night, and the darkness of the night, under the trees.