The steel traps resemble our ordinary rat-traps, but have no teeth, and the springs are double. In the large traps used for beavers, foxes, and wolves, these have to be made so powerful that it requires all the force of a strong man to set them. They are placed in the snow, and carefully covered over; fragments of meat are scattered about, and the place smoothed down, so as to leave no trace. To the trap is attached a chain, with a ring at the free extremity, through which a stout stake is passed, and left otherwise unattached. When an animal is caught--generally by the leg, as he digs in the snow for the hidden morsels--he carries off the trap for a short distance, but is soon brought up by the stake getting entangled across the trees and fallen timber, and is rarely able to travel any great distance before being discovered by the trapper. The fur-hunter’s greatest enemy is the North American glutton, or, as he is commonly called, the wolverine or carcajou. This curious animal is rather larger than an English fox, with a long body, stoutly and compactly made, mounted on exceedingly short legs of great strength. His broad feet are armed with powerful claws, and his track in the snow is as large as the print of a man’s fist. The shape of his head, and his hairy coat, give him very much the appearance of a shaggy brown dog. During the winter months he obtains a livelihood by availing himself of the labours of the trapper, and such serious injury does he inflict, that he has received from the Indians the name of Kekwaharkess, or “The Evil One.” With untiring perseverance he hunts day and night for the trail of man, and when it is found follows it unerringly. When he comes to a lake, where the track is generally drifted over, he continues his untiring gallop round its borders, to discover the point at which it again enters the woods, and again follows it until he arrives at one of the wooden traps. Avoiding the door, he speedily tears open an entrance at the back, and seizes the bait with impunity; or if the trap contains an animal, he drags it out, and, with wanton malevolence, mauls it and hides it at some distance in the underwood, or at the top of some lofty pine. Occasionally, when hard pressed by hunger, he devours it. In this manner he demolishes the whole series of traps, and when once a wolverine has established himself on a trapping-walk, the hunter’s only chance for success is to change ground, and build a fresh lot of traps, trusting to secure a few furs before the new path is found out by his industrious enemy.