166 TRAPPING UP LITTLE OTTER 



float our boats, and then carry them over to the 

 pond, make a camp there, and trap for a week, and 

 then come home to enjoy our fortunes at leisure. 

 Besides the money that was in it, there would be 

 lots of fun, and so, having gained parental con- 

 sent and parental aid in the shape of provisions — 

 for, though grown-up, we were not of age — we 

 three set forth on our expedition in two boats. 



We embarked a little above the second falls, 

 Joe and I in his boat, and By in his, paddling and 

 poling at a leisurely rate, setting a trap at every 

 likely sign, whether burrow, feed-bed, or nightly 

 haunted log or tussock, and so on, as far as could 

 be properly gone over next day. On the way up 

 each boat kept its allotted side, never intruding on 

 the other, but on the downstream course it was 

 "go as you please," as fast as current and paddle 

 would bear us, with an eye out for a chance shot at 

 a swimming rat. The trapping here, when water 

 rose and fell several inches in the course of the day 

 and night, was very diflFerent from that in the 

 marshy lower creek, where there was little varia- 

 tion in the rise and fall of the sluggish current, and 

 a trap remained nearly at the same depth at which 

 it was set. 



Next morning we voyaged upstream again, tak- 

 ing up traps and catch till we reached the end of 

 yesterday's voyage, where we began setting until 

 we came to rapids so swift and rough that we had 



