Page:November Joe.pdf/113

 "I thought of that, but Danny says he had mitts on."

November drew a chair to the table. "Tell us all from the first of it robbing the traps and to-night."

In a few minutes we were drinking our tea while our hostess told us the story.

"It's more'n three weeks now since I found out the traps were being meddled with. It was done very cunning, but I have my own way of baiting them and the thief, though he's a clever woodsman and knows a heap, never dropped to that. Sometimes he'd set 'em and bait 'em like as if they were never touched at all, and other times he'd just make it appear as if the animal had got itself out. I would n't believe it at first, for I thought there was no one hereabouts would want to starve me and Danny, but it happened time after time."

"He must have left tracks," said Joe.

"Some, yes. But he mostly worked when snow was falling. He's cunning."

"Did any one ever see his tracks but you?"

"Sylvester did."