Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/186

112 one night he smelled a very sweet odor, and when he followed up the wind he came to a pine-tree beneath which was the body of a wild pigeon fresh killed lying upon the ground. The scent of the sweet odor made Silver-gray’s mouth water. He was very hungry, but, as he stooped to eat the pigeon, he caught the smell of man.

Then Silver-gray raised his nose quickly from the choice morsels, and when he snuffed about the ground he found that the smell of man came from the feathers of the dead bird. There was no smell of iron near—and he was very hungry indeed. But the body of the dead bird smelled of man, and he went away without touching it.



On the next night Silver-gray was trotting through the forest when he smelled a very bad odor, like rancid fish-oil, and when he followed it up, he cane to a great rock at the base of which lay a fine grouse, newly killed, and the fresh meat lay all bloody before him. So rank was the odor of fish-oil that Silver-gray did not catch the smell of man in the feathers, and in a twinkling he devoured the whole bird. But as he trotted along the trail he scented the odor of man.

Until that time Silver-gray had always avoided the trails of men; but now that he was no longer hungry, he was lazy,and he wondered where the man was going, Besides, this track smelled only a little of man, and all the rest was like fish-oil, for Old Man Ransome had rubbed the oil on his shoes. So Silver-gray followed along the trail until he crossed another strange odor, better than any he had known, and he came to a tree where a fresh bird lay dead on the ground. The sweet smell of anise, dearest of all odors to a fox, came from its feathers; and, forgetting the scent of man, he mouthed and played with the dead bird a long time.

When the old trapper came by in the morning, and saw by the tracks what Silver-gray had done, he laughed to himself—thinking that he would soon catch him—and hastened off to bring his traps. Deep in the ground at the place where Silver-gray had eaten the grouse he dug a hole for his trap, and a trench from there to a short log, which he had buried in the ground. Then he pried open the great jaws of the trap and placed it carefully in the hole, with a piece of brown paper stretched over the top, so that the smell of iron could not come out. Along the trench he stretched the chain of the trap, and then he fastened it to the short