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Updated: May 9, 2025
One evening early in November, after a hard day's travel through a big storm of wet, clinging snow, we sat by the fire in Oo-koo-hoo's lodge, and happily commented on the fact that we had got everything in good shape for the coming of winter.
One evening, while sitting before the fire in Oo-koo-hoo's lodge, we heard sounds that told us that Amik had returned, and presently he entered the tepee, full of wrath over the havoc a wolverine had wrought along his trapping path. The pelts of more dead game had been ruined; deadfalls had been broken; and even some of his steel traps had been carried away.
I shall now hunt well, and you shall have all my fur." To show his appreciation of the compliment, the Factor gave him an old shirt, and wished him good luck. In the meantime, Oo-koo-hoo's wife had succeeded in obtaining from the Factor's wife old clothes for her grandchildren, needles and thread, and some food.
Like contending chargers, forward they bounded at every stroke. Vigorously the voyageurs plied their paddles. Stiffening their arms and curving their backs, they bent the blades. Every muscle was strained. The sharp bows cleaved the lumpy water, sending it gurgling to the paddles that slashed it, and whirled it aside. On they went. Now Oo-koo-hoo's canoe was gaining.
We were now nearing the fork of Crane River, that in its three-mile course came from Crane Lake, on the shore of which was Oo-koo-hoo's last winter's camping ground; the men therefore decided that it was best for Amik to push on in the light canoe and get the two deerskin winter tepee coverings, as well as their traps, that had been cached there last spring; and then return to the fork of the river where the family would go into camp and wait for him.
One of the five dogs Oo-koo-hoo's best hunter travelled with us, while the other four took passage in the other canoes. Although the going was now up stream the same river by which I had come we made fair speed until Island Lake stretched before us, when we felt a southwest wind that threatened trouble; but by making a long detour about the bays of the southwestern shore the danger vanished.
When Oo-koo-hoo had almost reached the deeply marked circle in the snow where the wolf had been struggling to gain its freedom, he paused and said: "My brother, I need your coat, so turn your eyes away while I strike." A momentary calmness came over the beast, but as the hunter raised his axe it suddenly crouched, and with its eyes flashing with rage, sprang for Oo-koo-hoo's throat.
Factor Mackenzie and his senior officer, sitting in the guide's or chief voyageur's canoe, which, of course, was Oo-koo-hoo's, gave the word; and all together the paddle blades dipped, the water swirled, and on the gunwales the paddle handles thudded as the canoes heaved away.
Three times The Owl visited his latest wolverine trap, only to learn that twice the brute had inspected it and spurned it, for its tracks proved that caution had kept the animal more than five feet away. Later, as the winter wore on, the subject of wolverines was rarely mentioned as it did not add to the cheerfulness of Oo-koo-hoo's otherwise happy mood.
Needless to say, as that tree stood alone, no wolverine touched that meat. That day we covered about twenty miles, and by the afternoon of the second day we had arrived at the lake on the far shore of which lived Oo-koo-hoo's sister, Ko-ko-hay The Perfect Woman with her daughter and her son-in-law and four granddaughters.
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