RECREA TION. 



85 





A VICTIM OF THE BOY AND THE YELLOW DOG. 



In the 6o's mink skins, as already in- 

 dicated, had a decided value ; to-day 

 they are worth about 50 cents apiece — 

 such are the shifts and changes in 

 woman's fancies as to what she shall 

 wear upon her back or about her neck. 

 So the woman for nearly a quarter of a 

 century has saved the mink, but — God 

 bless her ! — she deserves no credit for 

 it ! She has but substituted another 

 creature in her demand for murder. 

 The seal has died by tens of thousands. 

 All through Michigan when the first 

 farming began — the trapper had pre- 

 ceeded the farmer everywhere — could 

 be found in every creek's valley little 

 circular enclosures of sticks about a foot 

 high through which lay a rotting sapling 

 ten or fifteen feet in length. These were 

 the decaying remnants of the dead-falls 

 the trappers had used. The rude dead- 

 fall, the mere wood with an enticement 

 of flesh, was a surer trap for the crafty 

 mink than any modern device of steel 

 spring and cruel teeth ; yet the ordi- 

 nary steel trap became, in later days, the 

 only machinery for his capture. 



The mink, of course, was of the creek, 

 and yet not altogether of the creek, for 

 sometimes he sought the beech ridges 



where were chipmunks and wood mice ; 

 but this was only in the winter, because 

 in summer there were the stranded fish 

 and the clams and the foolish frogs 

 loafing idly upon the water's edge or on 

 the lily pads. Practically, the winter 

 life is to hunting humanity the mink's 

 life. It is only in winter that his fur is 

 thick, it is only in winter that he is 

 sought, and it is only of his winter life 

 that the story is partly known. 



We knew his small majesty very well 

 in Michigan in the old days. We knew 

 his habits and his habitat ; we knew 

 that beside the water and along the 

 water he fished and fed and bred and 

 had his being. We knew that he made 

 many an inland raid and we were on 

 the alert for him at times, and in winter 

 we hunted him most knowingly. This 

 was the machinery for hunting a mink 

 in Michigan along in the early '6o's, 

 that is, the daylight hunting, aside from 

 all traps. 



There were required, first, a boy, a 

 small dog — melancholy, yellow or dirty 

 spotted preferred, — an ax and a spade. 

 In addition to this there was required, 

 of course, a certain degree of intelligent, 

 questing, woodcraft on the part of the 



