292 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



prods an earth bank with a stick. It is as he thought — hollow ; 

 a muskrat burrow or gallery in the clay wall where the refugees 

 from this house had scuttled from the wolverine. But now all is 

 deserted. The water has shrunk — that was the danger signal 

 to the muskrat ; and there had been a grand moving to a deeper 

 part of the swamp. Perhaps, after all, this is a very old house 

 not used since last winter. 



Going back to the bank, the trapper skirts through the crush 

 of brittle rushes round the swamp. Coming sharply on deeper 

 water, a dank, stagnant bayou, heavy with the smell of furry life, 

 the trapper pushes aside the flags, peers out and sees what resembles 

 a prairie-dog town on water — such a number of wattled houses 

 that they had shut in the water as with a dam. Too many flags 

 and willows lie over the colony for a glimpse of the telltale wriggling 

 trail across the water ; but from the wet tangle of grass and moss 

 comes an oozy pattering. 



If it were winter, the trapper could proceed as he would against 

 a beaver colony, staking up the outlet from the swamp, trenching 

 the ice round the different houses, breaking open the roofs and 

 penning up any fugitives in their own bank burrows till he and his 

 dog and a spear could clear out the gallery. But in winter there 

 is more important work than hunting muskrat. Muskrat-trapping 

 is for odd days before the regular hunt. 



Opening the sack which he usually carries on his back, the 

 trapper draws out three dozen small traps no larger than a rat 

 or mouse trap. Some of these he places across the runways without 

 any bait ; for the muskrat must pass this way. Some he smears 

 with strong-smelling pomatum. Some he baits with carrot or 

 apple. Others he does not bait at all, simply laying them on old 

 logs where he knows the owlets roost by day. But each of the 

 traps — bait or no bait — he attaches to a stake driven into the 

 water so that the prisoner will be held under when he plunges to 

 escape till he is drowned. Otherwise, he would gnaw his foot free 

 of the trap and disappear in a burrow. 



