BEAVER TRAPPING. 161 



one end several times so as to make a sort of brush of it, 

 turn your face to the wind, rinse your bait- stick well in the 

 water, open your medicine-bottle if an Indian, say an 

 incantation put the brush end of the bait-stick into the 

 medicine, give it a twist round, take it out, and cork your 

 bottle. 



But if you have inadvertently allowed a single drop of 

 water to trickle off your hand into your medicine bottle, 

 throw it away you will never catch a beaver with the 

 medicine in it again. On this point I speak not only from 

 my own experience, but on the authority of old white-headed 

 professional trappers, men who have trapped for their living 

 ever since they were old enough to do so. 



Having "medicined" your bait-stick, you will sink the 

 hand holding it under water, draw it down until only that 

 part of the bait-stick which has medicine on it is unsub- 

 merged, and raising it only as high as necessary ; your hand 

 being kept carefully under water, plant it inside the jaws 

 of the set trap, leaving about eight inches above the sur- 

 face, and leaning well back towards the bank. Taking 

 some more of the twigs from under your belt, you will pass 

 them under water too, and stick them in the river-bed, 

 some above, some below the trap, making a sort of avenue 

 leading to it in the shape of a very broad letter V. Then 

 you will take up the pole, wade out a bit, push it as far out 

 into deep water as the chain will permit, plant it as firmly 

 as possible in the river-bed, wade back to where you went 

 in, splash a lot of water over the bank to wash any taint 

 away, go ashore, and, rejoining your horse, start for the next 

 place. 



