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The Housatonic wanders at its own sweet and lazy will among the meadows, turning and returning upon itself till it has loitered twenty miles in crossing the eight-mile township, but never turning a mill or offering encouragement to any industry but that of the muskrats who burrow in its banks, or the kingfishers who break its glassy surface in pursuit of their prey.
The mink is very fond of muskrats, and trappers often use this flesh to bait their traps. I wonder if he has learned to enter the under-water hole to the muskrat's den, and then seek him in his chamber above, where the poor rat would have little chance to escape. The mink is only a larger weasel, and has much of the boldness and bloodthirstiness of that animal.
Please hit for the bull's-eye, first chop," pleaded Will. "I was wondering what we would do with ourselves during that time. There's old Jesse Wilcox, the trapper, who invited us up to spend a week with him and see how he runs out his string of traps in cold weather, catching muskrats, mink, 'coons, foxes and all such things in more or less abundance.
He saw many muskrats and rabbits and also the footprints of wildcats. A magnificent stag, standing knee deep in the water, looked at him with startled eyes. He would have been a grand trophy, but Henry did not fire, and, a moment or two later, the stag floundered away, leaving the young leader very thoughtful. What had the big deer been doing in such difficult territory?
Already the women and children had laid out their own little trapping paths principally for ermine, rabbits, partridges, muskrats, and skunks, the game found nearest camp; and many another thing had the women attended to.
Pretty soon Hugh and Ralph changed the subject of conversation and wandered off together, talking earnestly about the habits of muskrats and mink and otter.
The apex of the roof rises about three feet above the water. In some localities, however, muskrats live in dens excavated in the banks of rivers or ponds. To these dens several under-water runways lead. Muskrats feed principally on the roots and stalks of many kinds of sub-aqueous plants.
And this," he continued, taking up the other instrument, "is a muskrat-spear. The way to proceed is this: Go to a muskrat's house, and, with an ax, cut a chunk out of the top, directly over where they sleep." "And, by the time you get that done," said Frank, with a laugh, "the muskrats will be out of your way."
And he spent a great deal of his time along the streams that threaded their way through Pleasant Valley. Sometimes Peter dawdled on the banks of Swift River. Sometimes he lingered for days in the neighborhood of Black Creek. Nor did he disdain so small a stream as the brook that crossed the meadow. It was deep enough for a swim. And he knew that muskrats lived under its banks.
Cuthbert was pretty positive that there was some sort of a Hudson Bay trading post on this same stream, situated in an isolated quarter most of them went under the name of a fort, and indeed, they were built to resist any attack that might be made upon them by Indians or disorderly half breeds; for there were at times vast quantities of valuable plunder held in these posts, in the shape of rare peltries, and the many things the trappers took in part payment for their winter's catch, so that a clean-out of a distant post would mean a serious loss to the great company that for scores of years had carried on this business of gathering the precious skins of silver foxes, lynx, badger, mink, otter, fisher, marten, opossum, beaver, bear, wolves and muskrats.
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