Cruel? True; yet no man can say that without hypocrisy but the vegetarian; he who eats neither meat nor fish; wears neither wool, silk, leather, nor garments trimmed with fur. But if we must defend the trapper, let us say that for every fox that he takes a hundred hares are kept alive; and that by killing a single otter he saves the lives of a thousand trout. Moreover, while the beasts resemble man in some respects, they are by no means human. They suffer some pangs when they come to die, but during their lifetime they are not continually haunted by the thought of death. The king of terrors has no terror for them; and at the end they lay down their life without regret, and with no fear of torment in any life to come. It is as though the good God in pity had given them compensation for having withheld the gift of reason: the knowledge of good and evil which is at once the glory and the shame of man, the source of his profoundest joy and sorrow, his salvation and damnation. Which of them would not rather be one of the beasts that perish, than a man, made in the image of God, fated to follow evermore the gleam of an ideal that might lead to the heights of eternal glory, or the bottomless abyss of eternal degradation and loss? As for Jean Baptiste he accepted cheerfully the law of life and death as it was in the wilderness. He would live there, as the others did, according to his strength and cunning; and he would kill, too, not wantonly, but for a purpose; and when his strength failed, through sickness, accident or old age, he would lie down to die, as they did; with a few moans, perhaps, but without any vain regrets. What is death, after all, that men should fear it so? In the midst of the amenities of civilised life it seems a dreadful thing to die; but in the forest it is the merest incident. The good God cares for sparrows; gives them food and drink and everything else that they need; and after a while takes away their breath. So also He cares for man. The generations come and go; the earth abides; and God lives. Life and death, both are good; for living or dying we are the Lord’s. Thus Jean Baptiste learned the lesson of the wilderness.