Taking the steamer Emily C. Just upriver to their departure point, Prescott and Woodbury finally set out with their native guides / canoe men, but tensions between them grow and tempers fray.

In the ensuing days, Alverna's discontent with the limited social sphere of Mantrap Landing in general, and with Joe Easter in particular, becomes apparent.

Prescott has little experience of women and is a bachelor, and soon he falls for Alverna's charms, but is simultaneously repulsed by the thought of betraying Joe Easter, whom he considers a friend.

Easter goes on to explain that his stocks and warehouse have been destroyed by a fire set by the Cree in reprisal for the traders having cut off their credit: he is now broke and without resources or home (the fate of the others at Mantrap Landing is unclear).

In 1923, while travelling in England, Lewis met Sir George Maclaren Brown, general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway in Europe.

Lewis travelled with the expedition from June 18 through July 11, when he said that he had had enough: in part, he had grown testy with Claude, a relationship which he would later recreate in the tension between Ralph Prescott and E. Wesson Woodbury.

Lewis left the expedition and traveled back in the direction of Winnipeg, eventually reaching Sauk Center, Minnesota on July 27.

[5] In the late spring and early summer of 1925, Lewis obtained his brother's journals of the Saskatchewan expedition, and used them as the basis of his storytelling for Mantrap.

The flaying of E. Wesson Woodbury may spoil a great many people's summer vacations, but far more malice could have been wrought, and more sales made, if the ending had not been so tediously dragged out.

"[9] Mark Schorer and Richard Lingeman, Sinclair Lewis's two principal biographers, point out an obvious double-meaning in the title: that the "mantrap" of the locality can also serve as the figurative man-trap of marriage, which Joe Easter recognises and, in the novel's climax, races to rescue Ralph Prescott from making the mistake of becoming entangled with Alverna.

"[10] However, Mantrap was also an example of Lewis departing from the more high-brow problem novel in order to "[turn] out a swell piece of cheese to grab off some easy gravy".

[11]" The novel was adapted into the July Mantrap film, starring Clara Bow, Percy Marmont, Ernest Torrence, Ford Sterling, and Eugene Pallette, and directed by Victor Fleming.

The film starred Ray Milland, Patricia Morison, Akim Tamiroff, and William Frawley as "Les" Woodbury, and was directed by George Archainbaud.

The editors continue: "Following the movie, the manager of the theatre, who had during the course of the film recognized Red Lewis in the audience, proudly announced that the author of Mantrap was present and requested that he come on stage and address the moviegoers.