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Updated: June 7, 2025
Except in the matter of delicacies, he supported himself. But one thing he knew not, and that was the deer. To him they were as horses or sheep. He could not understand, nor did he care greatly, why they should flee so suddenly when he appeared. So Regis Brugiere tried to teach him, but vainly.
Now mark you this: If Regis Brugiere had not coveted and stolen the dog Jim, he would not have been forced to construct the latch; without the latch, he could easily have pushed open the door by leaning against it; if he could have pushed open the door, all would have been well with both himself and Jim.
Like a sprinter his volition was fixed on a goal, beyond which lay collapse. Inch by inch the hand kept on, blindly groping. It reached the latch-string; passed it by. Then, like a flame before it expires, the spirit of Regis Brugiere blazed out. With strange contortions of the body and writhings of the face his form came upright, the arm still reaching. So it swayed for a moment, then fell.
On the first of these occasions Jim effected an escape, and rejoined his master at a distance with every symptom of delight. Regis Brugiere, returning disgusted, found the cabin-door sprawled wide: Jim had learned to pull it toward him with his teeth. Shortly the trapper was forced to make a latch so that the dog could not pull it ajar by the strength of his jaws and legs.
Mounting on a snow-covered root, he thrust his right foot down into an unsuspected crevice, stumbled, and fell forward on his face. When the blur of pain had cleared away, and he was able to take stock of what had happened, Regis Brugiere found that he had snapped the bones of his leg short off below the knee.
At the trapping-places Jim had to stay behind. The man left with him his capote and snow-shoes, which Jim imagined himself to be guarding faithfully. Thus he was satisfied. Then on the return journey the two had fun. Regis Brugiere liked to pick Jim up and throw him bodily into the deepest snow. Jim liked to have him do so, and would disappear with an ecstatic yelp.
At regular intervals he visited these traps one after the other, crunching swiftly along on his snow-shoes. Jim always accompanied him. When the snow was deep, he wallowed painfully after in the tracks made by Regis Brugiere. When it was not so deep, he looked for grouse or ptarmigan, investigated many strange things, or ran at large over the frozen surfaces of the little lakes.
Thus it happened that often Jim had to be left at home, for to a solitary trapper the deer is a necessity. There is in him food and clothing. At such times Regis Brugiere was accustomed to pile high the fireplace with wood in order that his friend might be comfortable during his absence. Then he would leave the dog disconsolate.
Such was Regis Brugiere, a freeman and rover of the wilderness. Having been brought up in the service of the Northwest Company, he had followed in the train of one of its expeditions across the Rocky Mountains, and undertaken to trap for the trading post established on the Spokan River.
Regis Brugiere watched him as he trotted carefully through the woods, his four legs working like pistons, his head high, his soft, intelligent eyes spying for the likely cover. Then when he caught a faint whiff of the game, he would stop short, and look around, and wag his tail. Not one step would he take toward assuring his point until the man had struggled through the thicket to his side.
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