The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway 1. Judgment of Manitou
1916

Dick Haywood buttoned the collar of his mackinaw up about his ears, took down his rifle from the deer horns above the fireplace of the cabin and pulled on his heavy fur mittens. “I’ll go and run that line toward Loon River, Pierre,” he said. “Holy quill pigs, but it’s cold.” He glanced at the thermometer. “Forty-two below!” “Well, so long, Pierre.” Pierre merely grunted, as, twisting on his snow shoes, Dick started out over the crust with the swinging snowshoe stride of the traveler of the barren grounds.

In the doorway of the cabin Pierre stood looking after Dick as he swung along. He grinned evilly to himself, “De tief will tink it a blame sight cooler when he swingin’ by one leg in the air like Wah-boy, the rabbit; he would steal my money, would he!” Pierre slammed the heavy door shut, threw some wood on the fire and crawled into his bunk.

As Dick Haywood strode along he talked to himself as to the traveler’s of the “silent places.” “Wonder why Pierre is so grouchy just because he lost that money? Bet he just misplaced it somewhere. All he does now is to grunt like a surly pig and every once in a while I catch him leering at me behind my back. If he thinks I stole his money why don’t he say so and have it out with me! Why, he used to be so cheerful and jolly; when we agreed at Missainabal to be partners and trap up here in the Ungava district, I thought he’d be a jolly good companion, but now he hasn’t spoken to me for the last week, except to grunt or swear in that Cree lingo.”

It was a cold day, but it was the dry, invigorating cold of the northland and Dick enjoyed the crisp air. He was a good traveler on snowshoes and rapidly covered the first five miles of the trap line, but somehow he felt that something was following him and he glanced around several times only to be disappointed each time. “I guess it’s only the Koutzie-ootzie,” he muttered to himself, for in the North whenever men do not understand a thing they blame it on the “little bad god of the Crees.” Suddenly, as Dick entered a growth of spruce, he was jerked off his feet, high into the air. When his head had cleared from the bang it had received by striking the icy crust, he saw that he was suspended in the air by a rope that was attached to a spruce tree, which had been bent over to form the spring for a snare, such as is used to capture rabbits. His fingers barely touched the crust, and as he struggled and the cord grew tighter on his leg, he saw what he had sensed to be following him. Slowly out of the woods trotted a band of gaunt, white, hungry timber wolves, and squatted on their haunches in a circle round him.

Back in the cabin Pierre as he lay in his bunk was awakened by a gnawing sound overhead, and idly looking up at the rafter he saw a red squirrel busily gnawing away at the leather of his lost wallet. He thought of the trap he had set for Dick, and springing from his bunk he seized his rifle, and coatless and gloveless ran madly out along the trail. After a gasping, breathless, choking run he came upon the spruce grove. Two ravens left off picking at the shapeless something that had once been Dick Haywood, and flapped lazily into a neighboring spruce. All over the bloody snow were the tracks of My-in-gau, the timber wolf.

As he took a step forward Pierre felt the clanking grip of the toothed bear trap, that Dick had come to tend, close on his feet. He fell forward, and as he lay on the snow he said, “it is the judgment of Manitou; I will save My-in-gau, the wolf, the trouble.”

And he reached for the rifle.