A deadfall is made by placing one end of a suitably sized log--one perhaps fifteen feet long and a foot in diameter--on a figure four trap, so adjusted that its spindle end, to which the bait is secured, shall be poised beneath the upraised end of the log. Alongside of this log a double row of stakes is driven to form a pen with entrance leading to the bait. When this deadly contrivance is properly adjusted, the log and its pen of stakes is concealed with green boughs piled lightly over it, and all the hungry lynx sees is a narrow opening under green boughs, and in it a tempting morsel awaiting him. As those creatures, as well as now and then an otter, are sure to roam up and down all small streams, a spot where one emerges from a narrow defile, or joins a larger one, is usually selected for a deadfall. It is also quite a task to clear a suitable space, fell a right-sized tree, and construct one of these penlike traps; and although Old Cy and Ray started early, it was mid-afternoon that day ere they had the third one ready and awaiting its possible victim. As gum-gathering was also a part of their season's plan, they now left the swamp valley, and, ascending the spruce-clad upland, began this work, which is also worthy of description. The chewing gum of commerce, so delightful to schoolgirls and small boys, is the refined, diluted, and sweetened product of gum nuts, or the small excrescences of spruce sap that exudes and hardens around knot-holes and cracks in the bark of those trees. These form into hardened nuts or knobs of gum, from the size of a hazelnut to that of butternut, and are worth from a dollar to a dollar and fifty cents a pound. A long pole with a sharpened knife or chisel fastened to its tip is used by gum seekers. It can be gathered from the time frost first hardens it until spring, and to gather three to five pounds is considered a good day's work. Ray's first attempt at this labor seemed like nut-gathering at home, only more romantic, and when they were well into the vast spruce growth bordering one side of the Beaver Brook valley, he became so interested in hunting for the brown knobs, loosening them, and picking them up that he would have soon lost all points of the compass, except for Old Cy. There is also a spice of danger seasoning this pursuit. A wildcat might at any moment be seen watching from the crotch of a tree, or a bear might suddenly emerge from the thicket. It was hard work also, for while some parts of a spruce forest may be free from undergrowth, not all portions are, and this tangle is one not easy to move about in. There was also another element that entered into the trapping and gum-gathering life,--the possible return of the half-breed. "He hain't nothin' agin us," Old Cy asserted, when the question came up. "We didn't chase him the day he stole Chip, 'n' yet I s'pose he'll show up some day, 'n' mebbe do us harm."