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already had it
open.
    The first blast of cold air brought a gasp
from Jean-Paul. He pulled his hood tightly around his face. Only
his eyes were open to the strong wind as he peered through a very
small space.
    The huskies arose from
their warm snow beds and howled, the noise promptly blown away by
the wind. Sasha trotted over to the group and barked, as if to say,
“You don’t have a warm bed to sleep in at night!” Then she joined
Jean-Paul and Cordell.
    Once or twice Cordell had
to wait for Jean-Paul to catch up, the drag of the boy’s crippled
foot slowing him down. They went up behind the shed and started
down to the stream. Cordell carried the lantern, beaming its yellow
light on the ground ahead of him. Jean-Paul was glad he couldn’t
see his father’s face. His thoughts went around and around inside
his head.
    Cordell’s deep voice cut
into Jean-Paul’s thoughts. “Aha! Look over here, Jean-Paul!” He
aimed the beam at the ground. He no longer sounded angry, but a
lump came into Jean-Paul’s throat just the same.
    “ It—it looks like…”
    “ Footprints,” Cordell said. “Where do
you suppose they came from?” Jean-Paul didn’t answer. Cordell
stooped down and examined the tracks.
    A chill shot down
Jean-Paul’s spine as Cordell pointed to another set of tracks near
the larger ones. “And a smaller animal, too. Could be a mother with
her cub, no?” He arose. “Well, come on then, Jean-Paul, let’s trail
them to see where they go.”
    Sasha bounded on ahead,
knowing exactly where they were going. Jean-Paul also knew.
Suddenly he hung back, refusing to budge. Cordell was already
there, kneeling in the snow to look behind the boulders. He turned
and called Jean-Paul over.
    Jean-Paul limped slowly to
his father. Before him in the lantern light was the big steel trap,
exactly where he’d checked it earlier that morning.
    “ Now who do you think swiped my old
trap and set it up back here?” Cordell said.
    There was no use denying
it. Jean-Paul was caught. What could he say, with the evidence
right there before him? The only thing he had in his favor was that
his father didn’t stay angry long. He hung his head. Sasha nuzzled
the hand hanging limply at his side. He hunched himself down inside
his parka, feeling smaller than ever. There was only one thing to
do.
    “ It was me,” he said.
    Cordell stood up. “Why,
Jean-Paul? Why did you take this, when I’ve told you never to touch
the traps? This particular trap is very dangerous.”
    “ It—it was a surprise.”
    “ A surprise? It certainly was! When I saw
the tracks this afternoon, I followed them and wound up
here.”
    “ You knew they were mine,” Jean-Paul
said, shaking his head. “Mine and Sasha’s.”
    “ Do you take me for a fool, son? Of
course I knew. What I want to know is why you disobeyed me. If you
wanted to trap, why didn’t you come to me?”
    Tears stung Jean-Paul’s
eyes. “I wanted to show you I could do it all by myself. If I’d
asked, you wouldn’t have let me.”
    “ I see.”
    “ And—and Ma said she wanted an Arctic
fox fur for the baby.”
    “ Arctic fox?”
    Jean-Paul nodded. “Yes,
sir. She said she wants a girl. And she wants white fox fur for a
baby parka and boots.”
    Cordell thought for a
moment. “Yes, I understand. I guess she’d like silks and laces for
our new baby. Sometimes I forget how hard it must be for your
mother, living up here like this. She hasn’t made many friends, and
women need other women when a baby’s coming. What do men know, eh?”
He looked at the trap again. “Has it been here long?”
    “ A few weeks.”
    “ And you haven’t caught anything
yet?”
    “ Nothing!” Jean-Paul said. “Not even
an old rabbit!”
    Cordell studied the trap.
“Well, it might have caught a boy. Or a husky. But since you’ve already got it set, I
guess it can stay.”
    Cordell slipped an arm
around his son. “What makes you so sure the baby will be a
girl?”
    “ Because I think