regret that he had cut off both his fore legs, 

 probably at different times, when he had 

 been twice caught in man's abominable 

 inventions. When he came up out of the 

 stream he rose on his hind legs and waddled 

 through the grass like a bear or a monkey, 

 for he had no fore feet to rest upon. He 

 climbed a tussock beside the bait with im- 

 mense caution, pulled in the turnip with his 

 two poor stumps of forearms, ate it where he 

 was, and slipped back into the stream again ; 

 while the boy watched with a new wonder 

 in the twilight, and forgot all about the gun 

 as he tended his traps. 



It does not belong with my story, but that 

 night the traps came in, and never went out 

 again ; and I can never pass a trap now any- 

 where without poking a stick into it to save 

 some poor innocent leg. 



All this is digression; and I have almost 

 forgotten my surgery and the particular 

 muskrat I was talking about. He, too, had 

 been caught in some other fellow's trap 

 and had bitten his leg off only a few days 

 before. The wound was not yet healed, 



229 



