222 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
ISept. 19, 1896. 
THE MARKED MINK SKIN. 
Sixty years ago there lived in a quiet New England 
hamlet a hatter named Job Wilbur, an honest and indus- 
trious man who by economy and close attention to his 
business managed to gain a comfortable livelihood for 
himself and family. 
He was a Qaaker, and there being a goodly number of 
that persuasion in the neighborhood, he had the advan- 
tage of their patronage in the manufacture of the broad- 
brimmed hats which were an indispensable part of the 
apparel of the male members of that sect. There was 
no change in their fashion, and a new hat was only 
bought when the old one was worn out; but the orders 
were sure to come, though they came slowly, and as 
Friend Wilbur's conscience was quite easy on the score 
of filling the more frequent orders of the world's people 
as changes in the style of headgear demanded, the trade 
was good enough to warrant him in teaching his son Abel 
the mysteries of the craft. 
Abel's school days were confined to the winter months, 
but he was studious and made such good use of his lim- 
ited opportunities that he won the open praise of his 
teachers and the secret envy of some of his schoolmates. 
Among these were the four Thurstan boys, who were less 
apt or less diligent scholars than he. Their father was 
the great man of the village, keeper of the principal 
store and owner of several farms which had come into 
his possession bj;^ foreclosure of mortgages, and it was 
galling to the pride of the rich man's sons to be outdone 
in any respect by the son of the humble Quaker hatter. 
They snubbed and slighted Abel upon every occasion, and 
at last began to insinuate doubts of his honesty. 
The hatter's shop afforded a ready market for furs, and 
most of the boys of the neighborhood as well as its pro- 
fessional hunters and trappers availed themeelves of this 
means of adding to their pocket money, and trapped 
muskrats and mink along the little river that turned the 
village mills, and- in the small lake of which it was the 
outlet. 
Though they stood in less need of it, the young Thurs- 
tons were as forward as any to avail themselves of this 
source of profit and pastime, and though they had more 
means to buy traps and more leisure to tend them, yet 
Abel was their most successful rival in this pursuit. At 
length they hinted suspicions that he robbed their traps, 
but found little credence, for though Abel was too diifi- 
dent to be a general favorite, there were few who could 
believe that one who had been so carefully trained by 
such honest parents could be so dishonest. 
His case was under discussion by the village gossips at 
the store one evening, when Abel quietly entered. A 
sudden hush fell upon the company until he had done 
his errand and retired, a silence that he did not fail to 
notice. 
"The devil's aUers nighest when you're talkin' about 
him," remarked one as the door closed behind the boy. 
"Wal," said old Peter Carter, an oracle among them, 
"you can't make me b'lieve 'at a boy 'at looks so honest 
an' come o' sech honest folks '11 tech tu take what don't 
b'long tu him," and Peter knocked the ashes from his T. 
D. pipe with an emphatic tap upon the stove hearth. 
"The's a black sheep in most every flock," said the first, 
whose speech was mostly in proverbs. 
"I don' care if the' is," answered Peter. 
"You can't allers tell how fur a twud '11 jump by his 
looks," said the proverbial philosopher. 
"Wal, you can cal'late putty nigh, if you've studied 
twuds," said the other. 
"I tell you he's a sneak and a thief," Tom, the eldest of 
the Thurstan boys, declared emphatically, as he came 
from behind the counter with both hands full of raisins. 
"Everybody '11 know it 'fore long. Have some raisins, 
Mr. Carter? Have some, Cyrus? Have some, anybody?" 
"No, thank ye," said Peter, "I guess if your father 
come in an' ketched us a-chankin' raisins, he'd think we'd 
be'n a-helpin' ourselves." 
"Pooh! he wouldn't care," Tom scoffed; but he quietly 
pocketed his remaining handful when his father just then 
entered with Squire Tilden, the first selectman of the 
town, audit was noticed that Tom's beneficiaries munched 
their portion very unobtrusively. 
"The' must be some fire where there's so much smoke," 
the philosopher resumed. 
"I'll b'lieve he's up tu sech tricks when I see it," said 
Peter. 
"Yes, seein's is b'lievin'," Cyrus remarked, and the 
conversation drifted into other channels. 
["■JAfter transacting some business with Mr. Thurstan, 
Squire Tilden went out, and was quickly followed by 
Tom, who overtook him at a little distance from the 
store. 
"Mr. Tilden," he said in a low voice, "will you help me 
keteh a thief?" 
"What" 8 that? a thief!" The Squire stopped and looked 
at the boy's eager face, fully revealed in the bright No- 
vember moonlight. 
"Yes, sir," said Tom, "somebody steals mushrats ai^ 
mink out o' my traps. I know who it is well enough, but 
nob'dy '11 believe it. There's a mink in one o' my traps 
now, not twenty rod below the saw mill, an' I want you 
to go with me an' mark it so't you'll know the skin when 
you see it. It won't take more'n ten minutes; will you, 
Mr. Tilden?" 
"Why, yes, Tom, I'd do e'enamost anything for your 
father's son. But there's more'n that, Tom. I've heard 
some talk about this matter, and I'm sm-e you're on the 
wrong track. Abel wouldn't ever rob a trap." 
"That's what everybody says, but you wait and see," 
and Tom led the way down the river bank. "If he hain't 
got it a'ready, there's a nice prime mink in my trap here." 
Sure enough, in front of a disordered "cubby house" 
built under the shelving bank lay a large mink, quite 
dead after a brave struggle for life and liberty, wliich 
was evidenced by the torn earth and displaced sticks of 
the miniature shanty in which the bait had been placed 
and the trap set at its door, 
"Now you mark it so you'll know it, an' I won't look," 
said Tom, turning his back on his companion and whist- 
ling softly to himself as he looked upstream. The broken 
current crept unseen in the black sliadows of the banks, 
and sparkled in the moonbeams that were shot upon it 
through the fringe of naked trees. He could see up to 
the mill and the noisy dam, spilling from the entire brink 
its nightly overflow in a broad sheet of misty silver; but 
his thoughts were not of the beauty of the scene before 
him. 
Squire Tilden laid one ear of the mink upon a stick 
and nicked it with his knife, then replaced the animal in 
the position he had found it. 
"All right," he said, "now let's be off," and Tom's 
whistle became loud enough to be heard above the rush of 
the rapids and the roar of the dam. 
"You've marked it so you'll know it. Squire?" and as- 
sent was nodded. "Now if you'll go into old Wilbur's 
shop in two or three days, I'll warrant you'll find it 
there." 
"Like enough," said the Squire, "but it don't follow 
that Abel brought it there. Job buys a good many skins 
of a good many folks." And they parted on the street, 
each going his wav. 
Two days later Job Wilbur and his son were at work in 
the shop, the father whipping a broad-briramed hat with 
a rattan to raise the nap for finishing, which, in the case 
of this particular hat, was to be done with especial care, 
for it was for Friend Palmer, who sat at the head of the 
meeting on first and fifth days. Abel stood, at the hurl 
or hatter's table "flicking" a fluffy bat of fur with a bow- 
string twanged with a wooden pin. Further back were 
the furnace kettle and bench where unformed Jbiats were 
"planked" or rolled like sheets of pie crust, with a rolling 
pin, and the dyeing vat with its wheel, on which the 
blocked hats were placed to be submerged in the dye by 
its revolutions. 
The dingy walls were a museum of natural history, 
hung with the coats of various fur-bearers, the rounded 
pkins of beavers just as they came from the stretchers of 
Indian trappers in Canadian wilds, the attenuated pelts 
of otters, furry coats and plumy tails of foxes, bundles of 
mitten-like muskrat skins, a dusky display of mink skins 
and on*» great tawny hide of a panther hanging from ceil- 
ing to floor. 
In the front window an array of hats was disposed 
around an ancient and dilapidated stuffed beaver. It was 
faded and moth-eaten, its broad, scaly tail shriveled and 
shrunken like a dried fish skin. 
Presently Squire Tilden entered and accosted Job with 
a mingled air of determination and shamefacedness. 
"Well, Job," said he, "have you got any prime mink 
skins on hand? I've a notion to have a nice muff made 
for Miss Tilden, a Christmas present." 
"Christmas presents are a vanity," said Job Wilbur, 
"but I've got three or four nice mink. There's one in 
partic'iar that my son just caught, is a remarkable nice 
one. Abel, thee show Jonathan Tilden them mink skins, 
will thee?" 
Abel left his work and brought over the skins, all 
turned fur side out but one, which was still on its 
stretcher. 
"This is the largest and the tail is the handsomest," 
the Squire said, picking it up; "I'd like to see the fur 
side." 
So Abel took it off and turned it and submitted it to the 
Squire's critical examination. The worthy magistrate 
heaved a sigh of pained surprise when by touch and sight 
he recognizad the mark he had made in the ear of Tom 
Thurstan's mink. 
' ' Where did you get this?" 
"I caught it in one of my traps," Abel answered. 
"Where, what place?" 
"In a hollow log at the upper end of the mill pond," 
Abel replied, embarrassed at such close questioning. 
"Abel Wilbur," said the Squire in his deepest magis- 
terial tone. "I saw the mink in one of Tom 'Thurstan's 
traps last Tuesday night and I put that mark on the ear 
with my own hands, Oh, Abel, I'm sorry, I'm sorry 
enough," 
Poor Abel staggered as if he had been struck a crushing 
blow. "I don't understand it. There's a mistake some- 
where," he gasped. "It's awful." 
"What is it? What does it all mean?" asked the father 
in great anxiety. 
"It means that your son has taken what don't b'long to 
him. Job," said the Squire, solemnly. "I couldn't have 
b'lieved it if I hadn't seen this mink in Thomas Thurstan's 
trap with my own eyea and marked it myself. There's 
the mark on the left ear." 
"I don't think my son would do such a thing," said 
Job, "How is it, Abel? Surely thee can explain it," 
"I don't know, father, I don't know. It's all a mistake. 
The mink was in my trap, What shall I do?" 
"If you'd own it aU up, I should think better of you, 
Abel." 
"I cannot own to what I never did," said Abel, 
firmly. "I don't know how it happened, and that is all 
I can say." 
So in sorrow and indignation the Squire went forth, 
presently meeting Tom Thurstan, whose suspicions he 
was compelled to admit had been verified. Before the 
close of the day the story was known throughout the vil- 
lage, and at the evening meeting of the gossips at the 
store it was the all-absorbing topic of conversation. 
"It's a long rhud 'at hain't got no turn," Cyrus Barker 
said. "A wolf in sheep's clothin' '11 show his fur some 
time or 'nother. What ye think about it now, Peter, 
hey?" 
Peter could only shake his head and say, "I wouldn't 
ha' b'lieved it. An' I do' know 's I du b'lieve it now." 
But there were few who were so lenierit, and many 
were willing to accept the fact of Abel's guilt. Though 
he suffered no legal prosecution, he was under a social 
ban that was almost as humiliating and hard to bear as a 
penal sentence. 
His own family believed in his innocence, but elsewhere 
he was met by coldness, distrust or open contempt. At 
length he went abroad only as necessity compelled, and 
when the winter school opened he did not attend it, but 
worked steadily in his father's shop. 
Sometimes when a stock of hats accumulated Abel took 
them to a distance to peddle out, but even then he found 
his evil name followed him. 
So the cloud continued to shadow his life till he had 
grosvn to manhood. Coming home from a long extended 
peddling trip, he was tbld that Tom Thurstan was lying 
ill of a fatal malady and had sent an urgent request for 
Abel to visit him. 
Wondering much at the cause of it, and with little in- 
clination to comply with it, he nevertheless did so. 
He found Tom but a shadow of his former stalwart 
figure. His face bore a remorseful, haunted expression, 
in strange contrast to his wonted bold and defiant mien. 
He had but time to give Abel an eager welcome when 
Squire Tilden came in, evidently an expected visitor. 
"I'm awful glad you've both come, for I've got some- 
thing to tell you that I couldn't die in peace till I did tell 
you." Tom spoke rapidly, as if afraid his strength would 
not hold out. "I needn't tell you I used to hate you, 
Abel. I always made that plain enough. I told stories 
about your robbing my traps, but I couldn't prove 'em, 
and I made up my mind I would. You remember the 
night I got you to go and mark the mink, Mr. Tilden? 
Then my brother Perley took it out of the trap as soon as 
we left it, and he and I put it into one of Abel's traps. 
That's all there is to tell. You know the rest. It always 
troubled me a good deal to think I did such a mean thing, 
but never as it has since I was sick. Write it down just as 
I have told you, Mr. Tilden, and I'll sign it, and then you 
must show it to everybody — everybody." 
The Squire did as he was desired, and Tom signed his 
name to the confession. 
"Now can you forgive me, Abe? I've done all I can do 
to right the wrong I done you." 
After a brief but careful self-examination Abel an- 
swered, "It has been a grievous burden to bear, Thomas; 
but I can truly say I do forgive thee and bear thee no ill 
feeling. I vsdsh thee might get well." 
Tom shook his head. "I can't say 1 want to now. I can 
die in peace. Good-bye, Abel." 
"Farewell, Thomas; I thank thee for what thee has' 
done." 
The young men took each other's hand in a kindly and 
grateful clasp, and the visitors departed in solemn silence. 
Squire Tilden lost no time in making public the con- 
fession, and then each member of the community strove 
to outdo every other in making amends to Abel for all the 
scorn and condemnation that had been heaped upon him. 
"It's allers the way," said Cyrus Barker, "if you give a 
dog a bad name everybody's ready to fiing a stone at him, 
an' we've all hed a shy at Abel." 
"I tol' ye I never b'lieved he stole that 'ere mink," 
Peter Carter protested. 
"Wal, seein 's b'lievin'," Cyrus said, "but feelin's the 
naked truth, an' that's a fact. I s'pose you felt 'at he 
wa'n't guilty, an' the rest on us didn't, was the way 
on't." 
Abel Wilbur became respected and prosperous in the 
community where he had been almost an outcast, and 
afterward removed to Philadelphia, where for years he 
lived an honored member and revered preacher in the So- 
ciety of Friends. 
This story was told me by a relative of his nearly as I 
have related it, with the exception of a change in the 
names of the chief actors. Kowland E, Eobinson. 
FsHBisBURGH, Vermont. 
ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 
I.— The Galapagos. 
The Galapagos Islands are so called from the land 
turtle or elephant tortoise found there. They are quite a 
large group, lying on the equator, and ranging from 
89 to 92 W. L. I visited them several times in 1860, '61, 
'63. I propose to give a few extracts from the log kept 
at that time. 
July 1, 1860. — Becalmed off Redondo Rock; two boats 
gone fishing. North Head looms well up off to the S.E. 
Wish I could get ashore. 
Boats got back at 4 P. M. Have had good luck, mostly 
yellow-tails; they had a few that looked like the Grand 
Bank cod. 
Hoisted in boats, took in light sails, stood off and on all 
night. 
July — This morning we found we were well in under 
North Head. Wind to west'rd and light. Made all sail 
and ran down past Cape Berkeley, into the narrows 
between Albermarle and Narborough. Came to at 
P. M. in Tagos Cove, Albermarle Island. 
This is a beautiful place from the ship. It may not 
look so well after we get ashore. It appears to be well 
wooded with patches of green sward and many black and 
brown rocks showing their heads above the foliage. I 
can see some clean white beach that I want to get my 
foot on. There is one point abreast of our anchorage 
where the rock comes clear to the water and ends in a 
high bluff which looks like the mouth of a cave. 
July S. — Here we are at anchor and all hands busy. 
We are to get wood and terrapin and have a run ashore. 
We are aU glad of that, for we haven't put foot on solid 
ground for months. Part of the crew are breaking out 
casks in order to make stowage for wood. Part are get- 
ting ready to cut wood, while others are getting ready for 
terrapin hunting. Some of our crew have been here 
before and they are giving instructions as to the outfit. 
The terrapin are foimd on the table-land, two and some- 
times as far as five miles from the beach. As there are 
no roads and no carts, they are brought down on men's 
backs. 
The terrapin will weigh from 40 to lOOlbs., and to pack 
one two miles over a rough trail in very hot weather is no 
boy's play. The outfit for the work consists of two can- 
vas straps and a few fathoms of spun yarn. The straps are 
about 3in, wide by 3ft. in length. They are doubled and 
well stitched with sail twine, with a large bole or grommet 
worked in each end. 
The modus operandi is as follows; First find your ter- 
rapin and turn him over on his back; then get a round 
stone about the size of a cocoanut or larger; sit down flat 
with your feet against the terrapin's shell; get a good grip 
of one of his feet and pull. He is very strong, and it will 
take lots of muscle and hanging on to get his leg out 
straight; but it will come at last, and then with your toe 
tuck in the round stone to the socket behind his leg. 
Make fast one end of one of your straps to his foot with 
several turns of spun yarn. Serve the other three legs the 
same way, having your straps fast to right and left legs 
and crossing in front. Now you are all ready to shoulder 
your load. If you have any little fixing of clothing, etc., 
to do, do it before you pick up your load; you can't do it 
afterward. 
Set up your terrapin against a rock, head up, and as 
high as your convenience will allow. Get down in front, 
back to your load, slip your arms through the straps, hav- 
ing them cross on your breast; then get on your feet, and 
there you are with your living knapsack, all ready for a 
tramp to the beach. 
It's not hard work at first, but hefore you get to the 
