THE MINK 



This little fur-bearer, whose color has 

 been painted darker than it is, singularly 

 making his name proverbial for black- 

 ness, is an old acquaintance of the an- 

 gler and the sportsman, but not so famil- 

 iar to them and the country boy as it was 

 twoscore years ago. 



It was a woeful day for the tribe of 

 the mink when it became the fashion for 

 other folk to wear his coat, which he 

 could only doff with the subtler garment 

 of life. 



Throughout the term of his exalta- 

 tion to the favor of fashion, he was lain 

 in wait for at his own door and on his 

 thoroughfares and by-paths by the traps, 

 dead-falls, and guns of professional and 

 amateur trappers and hunters, till the 

 fate of his greater cousin the otter 

 seemed to overtake him. But the fickle 

 empress who raised him to such perilous 



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