Personally, for many years, I have not 

 engaged in the very strenuous sport of 

 trapping. I shall, therefore, represent 

 the trapper by proxy. When the snow 

 in the forest is from four to five feet 

 deep, one may travel on snowshoes over 

 the tops of witchhopple bushes and much 

 other underbrush which in summer im- 

 pedes travel. Nevertheless, it is not 

 child's play to drag a pair of snow shoes 

 fifteen or twenty miles per day, visit a 

 hundred and fifty traps, rebait and reset 

 them, skin the caught animals, and carry 

 home the hides. All of this, of course, 

 must often be done when the thermom- 

 eter is far below zero. On so long a 

 trapping line as this would be, a comfort- 

 able boarding house at the outer end of 

 the loop was, for many reasons, very 

 desirable. 



One of the frequent visitors to the 

 brook that ran through Muskrat City 

 below our hillside camp, was a mink. She 

 often caught small trout, from three to 

 five inches long. Some of these were 



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