Oowikapun | Page 2

at once. So putting down his gun he took his axe out of
his belt and cautiously approached the treacherous brute. The sight of
the man so near seemed to fill him with fury, and, unable to escape, he
made the most desperate efforts to reach him. His appearance, was
demoniacal, and his howls and snarls would have terrified almost
anybody else than an experienced, cool-headed hunter.
Oowikapun, seeing what an ugly customer he had to deal with, very
cautiously kept just beyond the limits of the fearful plunges which the
chain would allow the wolf to make, and keenly watched for an
opportunity to strike him on the head. So wary and quick was the wolf

that some blows received only maddened without disabling him.
Oowikapun at length, becoming annoyed that he should have any
difficulty in killing an entrapped wolf, resolved to end the conflict at
once with a decisive blow; and so with upraised axe he placed himself
as near as he thought safe, and waited for the infuriated brute to spring
at him. But so much force did the entrapped brute put into that spring
that it carried the log attached to the chain along with him, and his
sharp, glittering fang-like teeth snapped together within a few inches of
Oowikapun's throat, and such was the force of the concussion that he
was hurled backward, and ere he could assume the aggressive, the
sharp teeth of the wolf had seized his left arm, which he threw up for
defence, and seemed to cut down to the very bone, causing intense pain.
But Oowikapun was a brave man and cool-headed, so a few blows from
the keen edge of the axe in his right hand finished his foe, whose only
weapons were his sharp teeth, and he was soon lying dead in the snow;
but his beautiful skin was about worthless as a robe on account of the
many gashes it had received, much to the annoyance of Oowikapun,
who had not dreamed of having so severe a battle.
The traps were soon reset and Oowikapun, with the heavy wolf on his
back, set out for his camp. As he had set some smaller traps for minks
and martens in a different direction, he turned aside to visit them. This
would cause him to return to his camp by another trail. While moving
along under his heavy load he was surprised to come across the
snowshoe tracks of another hunter. He examined them carefully, and
decided that they were made by some person who must have passed
along there that very morning, early as it was.
As the trail of this stranger, whoever it could be, was in the direction of
the traps which Oowikapun wished to visit, he followed them up. When
he reached his traps he found that a mink had been caught in one of
them, but the stranger had taken it out and hung it up in plain sight
above the trap on the branch of a tree. Then the stranger, putting on
fresh bait, had reset the trap. Of course Oowikapun was pleased with
this, and delighted that the stranger, whoever he was, had acted so
honestly and kindly toward him.

Fastening the mink in his belt he hurried on to his camp as fast as he
could under his heavy load, for his wounded arm had begun to swell
and was causing him intense pain. His stoical Indian nature would have
caused him to withstand the pain with indifference, but when he
remembered how the wolf, maddened by his capture, had wrought
himself up into such a frenzy that his mouth was all foaming with
madness when he made that last desperate spring and succeeded in
fastening his fangs in his arm, he feared that perhaps some of the froth
might have got into his arm, and unless some remedies were quickly
obtained, madness might come to him, to be followed by a most
dreadful death.
But what could he do? He was several days' journey from his own
village, and many miles from any hunter of his acquaintance. He had,
in his vanity, come alone on this hunting expedition, and now alone in
the woods, far away from his friends, here he is in his little hunting
lodge, a dangerously wounded man.
Fortunately he had taken the precaution of sucking as many of the
wounds as he could reach with his mouth, and then had bound a
deerskin thong on his arm above the wound as tightly as he could draw
it.
Very few, comparatively, were the diseases among the aboriginal tribes
of America before the advent of the white man. Their vocation as
hunters, however, rendered them liable to many accidents.
Possessing no firearms, and thus necessarily obliged to come in