He has got rid of the most unwelcome visitor a solitary man ever had; but for the consolation of those whose sympathies are keener for the animal than the man, it may be said that in the majority of such contests it is the wolverine and not the man that wins. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 30: Radisson and Groseillers, from regions westward of Duluth.] [Footnote 31: Especially the Château de Ramezay, where great underground vaults were built for the storing of pelts in case of attack from New Englander and Iroquois. These vaults may still be seen under Château de Ramezay.] CHAPTER VII THE BUFFALO-RUNNERS If the trapper had a crest like the knights of the wilderness who lived lives of daredoing in olden times, it should represent a canoe, a snow-shoe, a musket, a beaver, and a buffalo. While the beaver was his quest and the coin of the fur-trading realm, the buffalo was the great staple on which the very existence of the trapper depended. Bed and blankets and clothing, shields for wartime, sinew for bows, bone for the shaping of rude lance-heads, kettles and bull-boats and saddles, roof and rug and curtain wall for the hunting lodge, and, most important of all, food that could be kept in any climate for any length of time and combined the lightest weight with the greatest nourishment--all these were supplied by the buffalo. From the Gulf of Mexico to the Saskatchewan and from the Alleghanies to the Rockies the buffalo was to the hunter what wheat is to the farmer. Moose and antelope and deer were plentiful in the limited area of a favoured habitat. Provided with water and grass the buffalo could thrive in any latitude south of the sixties, with a preference for the open ground of the great central plains except when storms and heat drove the herds to the shelter of woods and valleys. Besides, in that keen struggle for existence which goes on in the animal world, the buffalo had strength to defy all enemies. Of all the creatures that prey, only the full-grown grisly was a match against the buffalo; and according to old hunting legends, even the grisly held back from attacking a beast in the prime of its power and sneaked in the wake of the roving herds, like the coyotes and timber-wolves, for the chance of hamstringing a calf, or breaking a young cow's neck, or tackling some poor old king worsted in battle and deposed from the leadership of the herd, or snapping up some lost buffalo staggering blind on the trail of a prairie fire. The buffalo, like the range cattle, had a quality that made for the persistence of the species. When attacked by a beast of prey, they would line up for defence, charge upon the assailant, and trample life out. Adaptability to environment, strength excelling all foes, wonderful sagacity against attack--these were factors that partly explained the vastness of the buffalo herds once roaming this continent.