Nepeese carefully dipped a hundred traps in boiling caribou fat mixed with beaver grease, while Pierrot made fresh deadfalls ready for setting on his trails.

When he was gone more than a day from the cabin, she was always with him.
But at the cabin there was much to do, for Pierrot, like all his Northern brotherhood, did not begin to prepare until the keen tang of autumn was in the air.

There were snowshoes to be rewebbed with new babiche; there was wood to be cut in readiness for the winter storms.
The cabin had to be banked, a new harness made, skinning knives sharpened and winter moccasins to be manufactured--a hundred and one affairs to be attended to, even to the repairing of the meat rack at the back of the cabin, where, from the beginning of cold weather until the end, would hang the haunches of deer, caribou, and moose for the family larder and, when fish were scarce, the dogs' rations.
In the bustle of all these preparations Nepeese was compelled to give less attention to Baree than she had during the preceding weeks.

They did not play so much; they no longer swam, for with the mornings there was deep frost on the ground, and the water was turning icy cold.

They no longer wandered deep in the forest after flowers and berries.