A Novel Muskrat Hunt. 



looked up laughingly and replied, "I see, old fellow. You think 

 I am playing a joke on you. But it's plain you don't know any- 

 thing about this kind of shooting. You see, the muskrats in 

 this country live in houses on the big sloughs during the 

 winter, and when the ice breaks up in the spring they go clown 

 the outlets with the floating ice to the river, where they pair 

 off for the summer season. These outlets are thirty or forty 

 rods wide in the spring when the water is high, and, with the 

 wind blowing hard, it is not an easy matter to shoot a muskrat 

 off one of these bobbing cakes of ice with a rifle." 



Reaching the slough, we stopped near the outlet and 

 jxit up our team with a farmer. Steve got the farmer's 

 boy and dog to go with us ; the farmer to skin the 

 rats (for their hides) and the latter to retrieve them 

 from the water when killed. Jumping into an old skiff. Steve 

 paddled over to the other side, leaving the boy with me (to 

 initiate me into the mysteries of rat shooting). Selecting a 

 sheltered place, we made a blind for ourselves .out of dead 

 rushes and grass, and, crouching down behind it, waited for 

 our game to come along. We hadn't been long in our blind 

 before the boy nudged me, and. pointing up stream, said : 



"There comes one on that little cake of ice. He is yours, 

 because he's nearest your side of the stream." Looking away 

 out over the water in the direction the boy pointed, I saw a 

 small cake of ice bobbing along over the water with a little 

 dark spot on it that one would never think was a muskrat. 

 Raising the rifle to my shoulder, I took a careful aim at the 

 object and pulled the trigger ; the dark spot slipped off the ice 

 at the crack of the gun and disappeared beneath the waves. 

 The next passenger fell to the lot of Steve, and, at the crack 

 of his little .2'2, it rolled off its perch, gave a few expiring kicks, 

 and floated quietly on down-stream. When it came opposite 

 our blind the dog plunged into the icy water and soon returned 

 with a big sleek muskrat in his mouth, which the boy took 

 charge of deftly removing the little animal's warm winter 

 coat. 



[41] 



