62 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 36, 190I. 
Reminiscences. — III, 
BY ROWLAND E. ROBINSON. 
The boy's first real fur trapping is usually for the musk- 
rat, an animal whose fur always has cash value negotiable 
at the country store, the tin peddler's cart, or with the 
itinerant fur buyer and so available for the purchase of 
ammunition, fishing tackle, jack-knives and tickets to the 
menagerie. 
Almost every farm has its swamp, ditch or beaver 
meadow brook to harbor a small stock of game, too paltry 
to invite the rivalry of the professional trapper who plies 
his craft in the great streams and marshes. The muskrat 
has little of the wariness and cunning in regard to the 
trap for which his greater relative, the beaver, is famous ; 
and the young trapper having gained the mere mechanical 
mastery of the steel trap, is fairly well outfitted to essay 
the capture of this animal in such places as he is likely 
to find it. 
My soul \vas first fired with the ambition by the dis- 
covery of a smooth-worn place in a bog with a few chips 
.of grass root and a few lumps of muskrat sign lying upon 
it. Going a little further I found other places bearing 
similar traces of muskrat visitation, and in my ignorance 
doubted not that each was made by a different individual, 
and began at once to compute my prospective wealth. It 
.was a new hunting ground to me that I was exploring, a 
freat ditch cut some years before for the drainage of a 
tf-ad beaver meadow, quite outside the limits of my ac- 
customed range, and if heard of, it was never as an 
abode of muskrats. I hardly dared to hope that it was 
as unknown in this respect to every one as it had been to 
me an hour before. Yet there was no sign of it ; certainly 
there was no present occupant. My first thought was to 
secure my discovery by pre-emption, but to do this I must 
have more traps than had served me in my previous small 
operations. The two or three that I owned, with twice as 
many that could be borrowed of neighbors, made but a 
sorry muster. I remember one, which, a curiosity then, 
would be a rare one noAv, with spring and bedpiece all 
in one that could only be set in such few places as fitted 
it. But antiquities and curiosities were of srnall account 
to me then beside anything that would catch a muskrat, 
an<i I lent a willing ear to 2.ny deceitful tongue that cared 
lb fool me with pretended wisdom. 
■ When old Sim, most famous of liars, beguiled me with 
.tales of his marvelous success with the box trap, I spent 
hours and sound pine boards in the manufacture of traps 
that neither the yellowest of carrots nor the sweetest of 
Tallman sweets would lure a muskrat to enter, and I only 
got rid of the bait by eating it myself. 
When my traps were all set in what had seemed the 
best places, others appeared better, and they must needs 
be changed, until the first setting was not likely to be ac- 
complished but for the warning of the lengthening 
shadows along the mountain road through which I must 
pass to reach home. This was not formidable in the full 
light of day, but of a different aspect when viewed in 
the shadows of night. So I finished with more haste than 
care, yet found the wood road growing gloomy and got a 
great fright before I reached the other end of it. A boy 
could not help thinking of the panther that the profes- 
sional berry pickers xised to hear with regular recurrence 
when the huckleberries began to ripen, nor to wonder if 
the beast did not occasionally haimt our mountain at other 
seasons. At any rate, I was thinking of it, and that a 
beast of prey was likely to be very hungry at this time of 
year, and trying to revive my courage with the thought of 
the charge of BB shot in my fowlingpiece while I trod 
very quick and light on the dry leaves. 
Just then my toe caught on a dead sapling that lay 
across the path, there was a sudden rustle of leaves and 
snapping of twigs 10 feet to one side, a shrill quavering 
cry in the same direction, not recognized then as the 
familiar voice of the screech owl, more than the thresh- 
ing of the leaves by the sapling top was as the noise of an 
inanimate object. Then I got to my legs and that gave 
me strength and I fled from there, turning neither to the 
right nor left. I hammered my rapid resounding way 
along the woodland road, nor slackened pace nor cast a 
lingering look behind until well out into- the open pasture 
and in sight of the homestead roof. 
On sober second thought, my adventure seemed hardly 
worth relating next day. 
When I traveled the mountain road the day after it 
was cheery with the singing of birds, and my thoughts 
were far enough from brooding on savage beasts, for they 
were busy filling my traps with smaller but more de- 
sirable game. Would there be a muskrat in more than 
every trap, I wondered, yet without a fear that the num- 
ber could be less with the traps in. such a choice pick of 
sure places. 
Thus hopefully I drew near the first, not disappointed, 
for there at the bottom of the clear shallow water lay a 
drowned muskrat, a mouthful of uprooted sedge in the 
set jaws, the flat scaly tail curved to the shape of a 
scimiter. For all my having been so sure of it, my heart 
choked me with a great surge of _ exultation when I 
loosened the tally stick, and drawing my first victim to 
the surface, was fully assured of possession. _My hand was 
not strong enough to ease the jaws from this foot, and I 
had to take trap, prey and all to hard ground where I 
could press down the spring with my foot. 
There on my hands and knees I gloated to my heart's 
content over my prize, which was growing handsomer 
every minute as the fur dried. Resetting the trap with 
great care, I proceeded to examine the others, almost pre- 
pared now to find without surprise a rat in every one. 
However, it was not a great disappointment that the next 
was found undisturbed, but when another was come to in 
the same condition, it began to look as if something was 
wrong, and especially so when I came to the very last 
one without finding another so much as sprung. This 
turn of luck gave my hopes a sudden collapse, but the 
weight of the one in hand, the heavier for the diflSculty 
of keeping a hold on the slippery tail, and the philosophical 
consideration that this vi^s my first attempt, gay? mp a 
good degl df coirffdrti I reiiletober that my ii^ten'fidn 
of investing all the proceeds of my fur sales in a lot of new 
traps was abandoned. The need of them did not appear 
so great now that half a dozen caught but one muskrat 
a night, though perhaps it was really grfeater. 
The skinning of this rat was an undertaking that 
involved much study and careful work. I had never seen 
it done, and only knew that the skin was "cased" — that 
is, not opened along the belly — and was then stretched 
on a bow of tough, elastic wood. I began confidently at 
the tail, where I had seen the skinning of other animals 
begun, and leaving it traopened elsewhere, I succeeded 
in stripping it off oyer the head without damage. Then I 
made a critical search for a proper stick, which I found 
at last in a slender hickory sprout, on which the pelt was 
drawn tightly with the flesh side out and fastened by two 
upward cuts through the lower edge into the wood, into 
which the edge of the skin was drawn by its own 
elasticity. I was very proud of accomplishing this suc- 
cessfully, for it was accoixling to rule. But not so of the 
general appearance of the entire result, whicjb was far 
enough from conforming to the models I had seen. In- 
stead of a neatly roimded bow of snowshoe shape, it re- 
sembled more an awkwardly fofmed letter V with wide- 
spread ends. This was due to the manner of skinning, 
which, as I learned later, should have begun at the head. 
It was fortunate that in the pride of my heart I showed 
my handiwork next morning to a tin peddler, who in- 
formed me that my fur was unsalable by reason of the 
fashion of handling. Now the same objection is made 
to what was then demanded, and the muskrat skin, to 
find favor in the eyes of the modern buyer, must be 
stripped off from the rear and stretched on a thin oval- 
shaped piece of board, widest at the butts. 
The next day I tramped across the mountain and the 
length of the beaver meadow with the same poor tangible 
result — namely, one muskrat. All the other traps were 
apparently undisturbed, until it became evident even to my 
un.suspicious soul that I was assisted by an invisible 
partner. Invisible he remained, and his self-appropriated 
share unknown, though I had my suspicions. At last I 
grew tired of a partnership in which I had no voice and 
got so small a share of the profits, and I knew not what 
portion of the stock I might be left with at the end, so I 
took up the traps and departed, thankful to get away with- 
out the loss of one. 
For all the vexatious interruptions and the small array 
of fur to show for all my pains, what happy days were 
those spent in my first fur trapping, the leisurely morn- 
ing tramps, through tlie budding, blossoming woods, 
chickadees bearing me roadside company, jays creating 
senseless panic overhead as I advanced, and the cock 
grouse drumming to his nesting mate. Then there was 
the tramp along the brook, ahvays expecting to find a 
catch in every next trap until the last was reached, gaping 
as serenely as I left it the day before. The whole course 
of the line of traps only once in one day gave me more 
than the one trophy to bear away. That was when hear- 
ing the puppj'-like whine of a muskrat a few yards before 
me. I squatted in ambush among the dry sedge and pres- 
ently saw the head of a swimming rat appear from be- 
hind a tussock. I fired at sight, and he dived as quickly 
without perceptibly increasing the commotion caused by 
the shower of shot. Reviling myself for my supposed 
blunder, the common one of overshooting, I watched close- 
ly for an under-wake leading to the nearest burrow. I be- 
gan reloading in nervous haste, my fingers all thumbs, 
finding everything on top and nothing at hand, spilling 
ammunition right and left as 1 loaded with eyes on the 
brook. But the smooth surface continued, and when 
my gun was reloaded I went to seek some consoling ex- 
cuse for the miss in the place I had aimed at, which, by 
the way. is something I never knew a boy, nor many 
men, omit when the opportunity offered. Ill such a case 
a shot mark in range or a tuft of hair, a feather, or a drop 
of blood, affords a healing balm to the mortified spirit I 
found the tussock cut by shot in direct range, and was 
wondering how the game escaped, when I saw the tail of 
a muskrat pointing upward just beneath the surface, and 
then made out the body— all quite motionless. More 
puzzled .than ever, I laid hold of the tail carefully and 
gave a smart pull, when, to my great amazement, the 
dead muskrat arose to the surface with a mouthful of 
uprooted sedge. This was my first acquaintance, of a not 
uncommon, trick that has saved me more than one muskrat 
that would otherwise have been given up for lost. 
At last my traps were all taken up and tied together 
by the rings, the tally sticks were left in their places to 
fool my self-constituted partner on our fruitless round of 
the trapping ground, and slinging my burden over my 
shoulder, I started homeward on a roimdabout tour of 
exploration. First down stream to the low, grassy em- 
bankment, recognized by few who see it now as mark- 
ing the beaver's log-built dam. Few understood then 
what an important part its builders played in tlie history 
of the country. They were fought for to the death by 
savage tribes long before the advent of white men — the 
prize most hotly contested and most adroitly intrigued for 
by the English, Dutch and French in their struggle for 
supremacv. Indian hunter and free white trapper braved 
all hardships' and perils in their untiring search for the 
last colony of beavers, and vied with each other in the 
skill that outwitted the cunning prey and wrought final 
extinction. When the peaceable settlers came to make a 
home where the axe had never cleared a rod, the rank 
wild herbage of the broad beaver meadow furnished 
abundant winter fodder. 
Precious little I knew of all these things, only that there 
were yet free trappers in the far West, and dreamed en- 
chanting day dreams of being one myself when I got to 
be a man ; and all things are become possible to every boy 
There was room enough yet beyond the Mississippi, as I 
knew by the map of North America that I studied most 
of all in my school atlas, for not far west of a great river 
a vast expanse of yellow was designated "unexplored 
region," and another thickly dotted to represent sand, 
"The Great American Desert." But my fancy traveled far 
beyond these to the grand forests and clear, swift rivers 
of Oregon, attracted partly by the better defined green 
block on the map, but more by the narrative of Lewis and 
Clark's expedition and Irving's delightful stones of 
Astoria and "Captain Bonneville's Adventures, whiOJa 
had been the charm of the .past winter's eveimngs.^ 
When I came io the h'etofdek woo4s thrtotigH Which the 
brook wound for sixty rods, it was easy to imagine my- 
self walking in the perpetual shade of the giant firs and 
cedars beside the roaring Oregon, albeit I could step across 
it wherever I pleased, and its roaring was as gentle as 
Bottom's. The minnows that began to appear in flashing 
schools were salmon, and my two muskrats represented 
my morning's catch of beaver. My smooth bore easily 
became the long-barreled rifle of the mountain man; my 
cowhide boots, noiseless moccasins, and my sheep's gray 
garments his fringed buckskin leggings and hunting shirt. 
I chose a pleasant spot where I might guard against 
surprise by the Indians of whom the forest, no doubt, were 
full. 
I knew how the pelts ought to be taken off, ripped from 
chin to brisket and then the head carefully. 
To do this without cutting the skin, and do it quickly, 
was the only difficulty. It was a knack to be acquired only 
by experience, and I was not a little puzzled how it was 
to be gained by skinning no more than one or two rats a 
day, and almost wished, as one of my friends did when 
vexed with his own awkwardness in skinning a fox,. "By 
thunder ! I wish I could shoot foxes enough to remem- 
ber how to skin 'em, or else not shoot any." But neither 
of us gave up trapping or fox hunting for that reason. 
When at last the first muskrat was flayed, I pitched the 
carcass to some little distance from me down the brook, 
wondering as the smooth, slender, scaly tail slid from 
my hand whether it might not furnish as choice a dainty 
as the beaver's is said to. It would certainly be scant and 
hard to get, which I used t6 think were my grandmother's 
reasons for recommending a chicken's neck to us children 
as "the sweetest part of the crittur, my dears." 
It was so near noon that I was loth to wait fire making 
and cooking for the small results such a morsel would 
bring a boy's appetite and so postponed the experiment 
until a more favorable chance. But it has never quite 
come, and to this day I do not know the taste of a musk- 
rat's tail. Not so the flesh, which I have eaten and found 
so excellent as to warrant our Indian's preference of it to 
hares and squirrels. Its name and tail cause an unjust 
prejudice against it among us. 
As I plied my knife, the woods far and near were stirred 
by many sounds soft and low, or discordant and harsh ; 
chickadees, friendliest of wood folk, lisping their usual 
and best known call, or too briefly piping the less familiar 
love note, the sweetest of the songs of earliest spring ; the 
nuthatches' thin trumpet, one unknown and unseen bird 
continually whistling a single, sharp, clear call for a dog 
that never came; a scornful squirrel, snickering and 
jeering at me, head downward, rattling the bark with the 
nervous twitching of his claws. Far away down the 
brook a band of bltiejays. their discordant voices softened 
by distance, were berating some real or suspected enemy, 
supported by a legation of their black relatives. All 
furnished good stuff for the imagination to make into 
signals of spying Indians. Then the clamor of the jays 
drew nearer, there was a loud splash in the brook and a 
number of frightened minnows came scurrying along pools 
and shallows, some leaping clear of the water in their 
haste. 
The cause oT the little fishes' fright sow appeared; a 
weasel-shaped animal of twice the .size and darker color 
than that bloodthirsty raider of poultry houses came along 
the bank carrying a: large minnow in his mouth. I should 
have recognized it at once as a mink if it had not been 
for the color, which was not black as a mink, but brown 
and not of the darkest at that. 1 reached slowly and 
cautiously for my gun with what is always a boy's first 
thought; to shoot every strange wild beast or bird at 
sight. Luckily, mine could not be carried out at once, and _ 
the .delay gave time for a lesson in natural history that 
was later of value. Before I got my gun in hand the new- 
comer on the scene came to the freshly skinned muskrat 
lying directly in his path, and it immediately became an 
object of the greatest interest to him. He stopped short 
with a backward start of surprise. Then he began an 
examination of his discovery, craning his long neck till 
his forelegs looked as if set in the middle of the body. 
Becoming satisfied of its nature, he drew nearer to 
it, dropped the fish from his mouth, as, I supposed, for 
better examination by the finer sense of smell. But after 
a little dibble of the carcass with his nose, he seized it by 
the neck and began dragging it, by the way he came, so 
easily, though it must have been twice his own weight, that 
I wondered at his strength. 
The jays discovered me, and evidently thought me more 
dangerous than the previous object of their attention, for 
they flocked overhead with a louder outburst of discord, 
noticed at once by the mink, which discovered its cause, let 
go his burden and retreated a yard or two with evident 
reluctance, for he returned in a moment, all the while 
with his eyes upon me, until as he was about to lay hold 
of his prize, I fired. At the report the jays fled in 
terror. The lifting veil disclosed the last flash of blue 
plumage disappearing in the mist of budding leaves from 
behind the cloud of sm-oke that now hid my mark. 
Oiristmas at UAtttore, 
This invitation was sent out by Mr, Edgar Magness from hi« 
hunting lodge L'.^urore on Lookout Mountain, in Alabama: 
Another fair Christmas has come to L'Aurore. 
Its pine-tree bells are ringing; 
Tlie mistletoe bough hangs over the door, 
The pine fire now is singing. < 
Come up, if you will, my welcome is wide, ^ 
Break again on a bachelor's dreaming; 
We'll merrily glide in the Christmas-tide 
Which over my mountain is streaniing. 
Walk in my mountain path, I then will see 
Within each footprint gleaming. 
The wind-blown stars of anemone 
And bluets faintly beaming. 
Come, then, to me, the way is clear, 
•With each steep step a wider view_ is founds ... 
Your smile grows brighter to me every year ; 
Tben jate it. w5ttt my t?a?V(p^. all arbund. 
