OTHER LITTLE ANIMALS 293 



If the marsh is large, there will be more than one muskrat 

 colony. Having exhausted his traps on the first, the trapper lies 

 in wait at the second. When the moon comes up over the water, 

 there is a great splashing about the muskrat nests ; for autumn 

 is the time for house-building and the muskrats work at night. If 

 the trapper is an eastern man, he will wade in as they do in New 

 Jersey ; but if he is a type of the western hunter, he lies on the 

 log among the rushes, popping a shot at every head that appears 

 in the moonlit water. His dog swims and dives for the quarry. 

 By the time the stupid little muskrats have taken alarm and hidden, 

 the man has twenty or thirty on the bank. Going home, he empties 

 and resets the traps. 



Thirty marten traps that yield six martens do well. Thirty 

 muskrat traps are expected to give thirty muskrats. Add to 

 that the twenty shot, and what does the day's work represent ? 

 Here are thirty skins of a coarse, light reddish hair, such as line 

 the poor man's overcoat. These will sell for from 7^ to $J each. 

 They may go roughly for #4 at the fur post. Here are ten of the 

 deeper brown shades, with long soft fur that lines a lady's cloak. 

 They are fine enough to pass for mink with a little dyeing, or imi- 

 tation seal if they are properly plucked. These will bring from 

 #4 to $7. But here are ten skins, deep, silky, almost black, for which 

 a Russian officer will pay high prices, skins that will go to England, 

 and from England to Paris, and from Paris to St. Petersburg with 

 accelerating cost mark till the Russian grandee is paying #10 or 

 more for each pelt. Then this idle fellow's day has totalled up a 

 big bag, not a bad day's work, considering he did not go to the 

 university for ten years to learn his craft, did not know what wear 

 and tear and drive meant as he worked, did not spend more than a 

 few cents' worth of shot. But for his muskrat-pelts the man will 

 not get #9 in coin unless he lives very near the great fur markets. 

 He will get powder and clothing and food and tobacco whose first 

 cost has been increased a hundredfold by ship rates and railroad 

 rates, by keel-boat freight and pack-horse expenses and portage 



