[Footnote 33: Fitzpatrick was late in reaching the hunting-ground this year, owing to a disaster with Smith on the way back from Santa Fé.] [Footnote 34: By law the Hudson's Bay had no right in this region from the passing of the act forbidding British traders in the United States. But, then, no man had a right to steal half a million of another's furs, which was the record of the Rocky Mountain men.] PART II CHAPTER IX THE TAKING OF THE BEAVER All summer long he had hung about the fur company trading-posts waiting for the signs. And now the signs had come. Foliage crimson to the touch of night-frosts. Crisp autumn days, spicy with the smell of nuts and dead leaves. Birds flying away southward, leaving the woods silent as the snow-padded surface of a frozen pond. Hoar-frost heavier every morning; and thin ice edged round stagnant pools like layers of mica. Then he knew it was time to go. And through the Northern forests moved a new presence--the trapper. Of the tawdry, flash clothing in which popular fancy is wont to dress him he has none. Bright colours would be a danger-signal to game. If his costume has any colour, it is a waist-belt or neck-scarf, a toque or bright handkerchief round his head to keep distant hunters from mistaking him for a moose. For the rest, his clothes are as ragged as any old, weather-worn garments. Sleeping on balsam boughs or cooking over a smoky fire will reduce the newness of blanket coat and buckskin jacket to the dun shades of the grizzled forest. A few days in the open and the trapper has the complexion of a bronzed tree-trunk. Like other wild creatures, this foster-child of the forest gradually takes on the appearance and habits of woodland life. Nature protects the ermine by turning his russet coat of the grass season to spotless white for midwinter--except the jet tail-tip left to lure hungry enemies and thus, perhaps, to prevent the little stoat degenerating into a sloth. And the forest looks after her foster-child by transforming the smartest suit that ever stepped out of the clothier's bandbox to the dull tints of winter woods. This is the seasoning of the man for the work. But the trapper's training does not stop here.