Mooswa & Others of the Boundaries

"Nor I!" declared Mink.

"My nails are all single!" asserted Muskrat.

"Look for yourselves if you don't believe me," commanded Jack. "If he hasn't got it, I'll take back what I said, and you can make him King if you wish."

This made Black Fox nervous. "Will you show our Comrades your toes, please?" he commanded Beaver, with great politeness.

Umisk held up his foot deprecatingly. There sure enough, on the second toe, was a long, black, double claw, like a tiny pincers. "What did I tell you?" shrieked Jack. "He can pin a Flea with that as easily as Mink seizes a wriggling Trout. He's got half-a-dozen different kinds of Fleas, has Umisk. I won't have a King who is little better than a bug-nursery. A King must be above that sort of thing."

"This is all nonsense," exclaimed Carcajou angrily, for he had fleas himself; "it's got nothing to do with the matter. Umisk has to live under the ice nearly all Winter, and would be of no more service to us than Muskwa-that's the real objection."

"My!" cried Beaver, patting the ground irritably with his trowel-tail, "one really never knows just how vile he is till he gets running for office. Besides, I don't want to be King-I'm too busy. Perhaps sometime when I was here governing the Council, François, or another enemy, would break my dam and murder the whole family; besides, it's too dusty out here-I like the nice, clean water. My feet get sore walking on the land."

"Oh, he doesn't want to be King!" declared Jay, ironically. "Next! next! Who else is there, Frog-legged Carcajou?"

"Well, there's Muskrat," suggested Lynx; "I like him."

"Yes, to eat!" interrupted Whisky-Jack. "If Wuchusk were King, we'd come home some day and find that he'd been eaten by one of his own subjects-by the sneaking Lynx-'Slink' it should be."

"You shouldn't say that," declared Black Fox; "because you're our Mail Carrier you shouldn't take so many liberties."

"I'm only telling the truth. It has always been the custom at these meetings for each one to speak just what he thought, and no hard feelings afterward."

Carcajou pulled his long, curved claws through his whiskers reflectively. "What's the use of wrangling like this-we're as silly as a lot of Men. Last Winter when I was down at Grand Rapids I sat up on the roof of a Shack listening to those two-legged creatures squabbling. They were all arguing fiercely about the different ways of getting to Heaven. According to each one he was on the right road, and the rest were all wrong. Fresh Meat! but it was stupid; for I gathered from what they said that the one way to get there was to be good; only each had a different way."

"What place did you say?" queried the Jay.

"Grand Rapids."

"No, no! the place they all wanted to go to."

"Heaven."

"Where's that?"

"I don't know, and you needn't bother; for the Men said it was a place for the good, only."

Beaver's fat sides fairly shook as he chuckled delightedly over the snub Carcajou had given Jack.

"Ha, ha!" roared Bear; "Sweet Berries! but Humpback is too many for you, Birdie," and the woods echoed with his laughter.

"Rats!" screamed the Jay; "that's the subject under discussion. Our friend wanders from his theme trying to be personal."

"Oh, nobody's personal here," sighed Lynx. "I'm a 'Slink,' but that doesn't count."

"Yes, talking of Rats," recommenced Carcajou, "like Lynx, I admire our busy little Brother, Beaver, though I never ate one in my life-"

"Pisew did!" chirruped the bird-voice from over their heads.

"Though I never ate one," solemnly repeated Wolverine; "but if Umisk won't do for King, there is no use discussing Wuchusk's chances. He has all Trowel Tail's failings, without his great wisdom, and even can't build a decent house, though he lives in one. Half the time he hasn't anything to eat for his family; you'll see him skirmishing about Winter or Summer, eating Roots, or, like our friends Mink and Otter, chasing Fish. Anyway, I get tired of that horrible odour of musk always. His house smells as bad as a Trapper's Shack with piles of fur in it-I hate people who use musk, it shows bad taste; and to carry a little bag of it around with one all the time-it's detestable!"

"You should take a trip to the Barren Lands, my fastidious friend, as I did once," interposed Mooswa, "and get a whiff of the Musk Ox. Much Fodder! it turned my stomach."

"You took too much of it, old Blubbernose," yelled Jay, fiendishly; "Wolverine hasn't got a nose like the head of a Sturgeon Fish. Anyway, you're out of it, Mister Rat; if the Lieutenant says you're not fit for King, why you're not-I must say I'm glad of it."

"There are still the two cousins, Otter, and Mink," said Carcajou.

"Fish Thieves-both of them," declared Whisky-Jack. "So is Fisher, only he hasn't nerve to go in the water after Fish; he waits till Man catches and dries them, then robs the cache. That's why they call him Fisher-they should name him Fish-stealer."

"Look here, Jack," retorted Wolverine, "last Winter I heard François say that you stole even his soap."

"I thought it was butter," chuckled Jay-"it made me horribly sick. But their butter was so bad, I thought the soap was an extra good pat of it."

"I may say," continued Carcajou, "that these two cousins, Otter and Mink, like Muskrat, have too limited a knowledge for either to be Chief of the Boundaries. While they know all about streams and water powers, they'd be lost on land. Why, in deep snow, Nekik with his short, little legs makes a track as though somebody had pulled a log along-that wouldn't do."

"I don't want to be King!" declared Otter.

"Nor I!" added Mink.

"And we don't want you-so that settles it; all agreed!" cried Whisky-Jack, gleefully. "Nothing like having peace and harmony in the meeting. It always comes to the same thing: people's names are put up, they're blackguarded and abused, and in the end nobody's fit for the billet but Black Fox; and Carcajou, of course, is his Lieutenant."

"We have now considered everybody's claims," began Carcajou-

"You've modestly forgotten yourself," interrupted Whisky-Jack. "You'd make a fine, fat, portly Ruler."

"No, I withdraw in favour of Black Fox, and we won't even mention your name. Black Fox has been a good King; he has saved many of us from a Trap; besides, he wears the Royal Robe. Look at him! his Mother and all his Brothers and Sisters are red, except Stripes, the Baby, who is a Cross; does that not show that he has been selected for royal honours? Among ourselves each one is like his Brother-there is little difference. The Minks are alike, the Otter are alike, the Wolves are alike-all are alike; except, of course, that one may be a little larger or a little darker than the other. Look at the King's magnificent Robe-blacker than Fisher's coat; and the silver tip of the white guard-hairs make it more beautiful than any of our jackets."

"It's just lovely!" purred Pisew, with a fine sycophantic touch.

"I'm glad I haven't a coat like that," sang out Jay; "His Majesty will be assassinated some day for it. Do you fellows know what he's worth to the Trappers-do any of you know your market value? I thought not-let me tell you."

"For the sake of a mild Winter, don't-not just now," pleaded Carcajou. "Let us settle this business of the King first, then you can all spin yarns."

"Yes, we're wasting time," declared Umisk. "I've got work to do on my house, so let us select a Chief, by all means. There's Coyote, and Wapoos, and Sikak the Skunk, who have not yet been mentioned." But each of these, dreading Jack's sharp tongue, hastily asserted they were not in the campaign as candidates.

"Well, then," asked Carcajou, "are you all agreed to have Black Fox as Leader until the fulness of another year?"

"I'm satisfied!" said Bear, gruffly.

"It's an honour to have him," ventured Pisew the Lynx.

"He's a good enough King," declared Nekik the Otter.

"I'm agreed!" exclaimed Beaver; "I want to get home to my work."

"Long live the King!" barked Blue Wolf.

"Long live the King!" repeated Mink, and Fisher, and the rest of them in chorus.