94 CANADIAN WILDS. 



leather bag is converted into a sled, the ends of 

 his long waisted sash are tied to the bag, and 

 with the loup over his shoulder he strikes out 

 a road straight for his camp, well pleased with 

 his day's sport and himself. Knowledge of the 

 architecture of the musquash's house (for they 

 are all modeled in the same way) enables a 

 bush man to know just where the little family 

 are huddled. 



There is yet another way numbers are killed 

 just after the ice takes, and before the mud 

 houses become too hard frozen; that is to skate 

 down on them shot gun in hand and fire right 

 into the cone of mud. The effect is not known 

 till the earth is pulled away. The shot being 

 fired at such close range there is, not unfre- 

 quently, three or four dead rats. One can not 

 help to moralize how cruel it is for man to 

 destroy at a moment the labors of long nights 

 of these industrious little animals, and cause 

 the remaining one to patch up the break at a 

 season when it can never be as good and warm 

 as when the work is done during open weather. 



The hunter therefore sets his traps, so as to 

 keep them employed, but he kills the greater 

 number with his gun. A very small charge of 

 powder and shot is required, and if the hunter 

 keeps perfectly quiet in his canoe, and is below 

 the wind, he can call the rat to within ten feet 



