222 Tur Aroostook Woops. 

trap is under water an inch or two the bait sticking up beside 
it with chain enough to allow him to get to deep water and 
drown. 
The best chances for the sable are in and around beside the 
swamps, though they are taken on the ridges, particularly in 
beech nut time, as they, as well as the fisher, will eat the 
beech nuts, though both are carnivorous to a murderous extent. 
The old pine, as well as other dry, decaying stubs, are just 
elegant for the house to set the steel trap in, and here is where 
the narrow bitted axe works to a charm for cutting into it, and 
the rather heavy poll helps to drive it. The spruce stumps 
left by the lumbermen are fine for the dead fall, though many 
of them too low for our deep snows; those upon the knoll 
are best. The dead fall does not require to be wide at the 
mouth of it, for the sable or mink; in fact a narrow entrance 
is best. So the fair sized fir trees, cut as high as one can 
chop them handy, gives us a chance to build the dead fall for 
these fellows, good for any time during the winter, and they 
last for years. ‘There is little fear but what the sable or 
fisher will find the baits even if high. Give them a small 
rough spruce piece to climb up by if so wished, though 
usually they get there just the same. A south exposure 
is always best for the entrance of the trap; nealed wire 
is good for the spring pole or tip-up, and a spool of it comes 
handy frequently, though the greater part of the trapper’s 
strings and ropes are the inner bark of the young and straight 
cedar trees and twisted withes;, for tying on the baits, the 
cedar bark is complete. 
The needful luncheon must be put up and carried along, 
and not a scanty one is satisfying when the boys are building 
traps and spotting the line; for earnest and active, deeply 
