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who possessed a cabin a few miles away. It was ideally suited to serve me as a permanent base camp. Apart from a small band of Eskimos including his mother’s family, living seventy miles away to the north, this young man, whose name was Mike, was the only human inhabitant in an area of some ten thousand square miles. This was excellent news, for it ensured that my study of the wolveswould not be adversely affected by human intrusions.
    Mike was at first inclined to treat me with some reserve—not to say suspicion. During his eighteen years of life he had never known an aircraft to land in his part of the Barren Lands, and indeed had only seen two or three planes before, and these had been passing high overhead. It was therefore difficult for him to absorb the fact that an aircraft which he had neither seen nor heard had landed me and my immense pile of equipment on the middle of his lake. In the beginning of our relationship he leaned more toward a supernatural explanation of my presence; for he had learned enough about Christianity from his white trader father to be on his guard against the devil. Consequently he took no chances. During the first few days he carried his 30–30 rifle in his hands and kept his distance; but soon after I introduced him to wolf-juice he put the rifle away, having apparently decided that if I was the devil, my blandishments were too powerful to be resisted.
    Probably because he could not think what else to do with me, Mike led me off to his cabin that first night. Although it was hardly a palatial affair, being built of poles and roofed with decaying caribou hides, I saw at once that it would serve my purposes.
    Having been empowered by the Department tohire native assistance, so long as the consequent expenditure did not exceed three dollars a month, I promptly made a deal with Mike, giving him an official I. O. U. for ten dollars to cover three months’ accommodation in his cabin, as well as his services as guide and general factotum. I was aware that it was a generous payment in the light of the prevailing rates which Government agencies, missions and the trading companies paid the arctic natives, but I felt my extravagance would be tolerated by the Treasury Department in view of the fact that, without Mike’s help, my own Department stood to lose about four thousand dollars’ worth of equipment as soon as the lake ice melted.
    I suspect, from the nature of subsequent events, that the bargain I struck with Mike was rather one-sided and that he may not have fully grasped its implications; but in any event he provided the services of his dog team to help me move my supplies and equipment to his cabin.
     
    During the next several days I was extremely busy unpacking my equipment and setting up my field laboratory—being obliged to usurp most of the limited space in the tiny cabin in the process. I had little time to spare for Mike, but I did notice that heseemed deeply preoccupied. However, since he had so far seemed to be naturally taciturn—except with his dogs—and because I did not feel it right, on such short acquaintance, to intrude into his personal affairs, I made no attempt to discover the nature of his distress. Nevertheless I did occasionally try to divert him by offering demonstrations of some of my scientific equipment.
    These demonstrations seemed to fascinate him, although they did not have the desired effect of easing his distrait attitude which, if anything, got worse. Shortly after I showed him the cyanide “wolf getters” and explained that not only were they instantly fatal, but almost impossible to detect, he began to display definite signs of irrational behavior. He took to carrying a long stick about with him, and before he would even sit down at the crude table for a meal, he would poke the chair, and sometimes even the plate of food, in a most peculiar way. He would also poke at his boots and clothing before picking them up in the morning when he was getting