248 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 18, 1906. 
Uncle Shaw and Some Others.—IV. 
Incidents of Life in a Vermont Village. 
{Continued from page 211.) 
One day, as Will was sitting on the store 
piazza, Uncle Shaw came out of the back store 
with a trap, which was large and strong enough 
to catch and hold almost anything, Will thought. 
There was attached to it a chain, on the end 
of which was a grapple of three prongs. Will 
asked him what he was going to do with it. 
“Wall,” said he, “I kinder made up my mind 
I’d go out and see about that critter that’s 
killing my sheep. Frank says there’s two more 
gone, and I’m going to put a stop to it.” 
“Are you going to set this trap to it.” 
“Yes, if I can find a place where I think 
I’ll be likely to git the critter, and where there 
won’t be any danger of getting a sheep or a 
cow.” 
When they got to the sheep pasture Will, at 
Uncle Shaw’s request, drove the sheep up into 
a bunch, and they counted them, finding only 
twenty-two. 
“That makes three sheep that’s gone. I know 
where one of them is, and now we’ve got to 
find the others. I guess the best thing we can 
do is to go up to the head of the paster and 
go back and forth till we come to them. If 
they have been dead a great while we’ll know 
it afore we git to them. I don’t care so much 
about them that’s dead a long time, but it’s 
the new kilt ones that I’m arter, so you’ll have 
to look sharp.” 
Back and forth through the bushes and among 
the rocks they went with no success till, as 
they had about decided that the sheep must 
have been carried away, they found one. Will 
had run up on a high rock to look around, and 
just as he was about to leave, he glanced down 
beside the rock and there lay one of the missing 
sheep. There was a large tree that had been 
blown up by the wind lying beside the rock, and 
in between the tree and the rock was a place 
that looked as though something had lain in 
it; and beside it was the dead sheep. When 
Uncle Shaw came he said it was the nest of the 
critter, and that right there was the best place 
in the world to set the trap. They wouldn’t 
have to do any chopping nor build a fence to 
keep the sheep out. 
He was careful not to step near it, but kept 
on the top of the rock, nor would he let Will 
go down there. He went away into the bushes 
with the ax and soon returned with some sticks 
about six feet long, each with a hook on one 
end. Then he built a small fire of birch bark 
and held the trap over it in the smoke. After 
the trap was all smoked black, he smoked the 
chain. 
“That’s to take the smell of my hands away. 
These critters in the woods have an awful keen 
sense of smell and can tell if a man has handled 
anything with bare hands, and some are so 
cunning they won’t go near nothing that smells 
of a man. Now, of I smoke this trap it won’t 
smell of my hands and maybe when that critter 
comes back he’ll get into it.” 
“But how are you going to set it if you don’t 
touch it?” 
“I oughter have some gloves, but I hain’t got 
none, so I'll set it just as careful as I can, and 
then smoke it again.” This he did, then taking 
the trap up on the hooked sticks, they went care¬ 
fully back to the rock and lowered it carefully 
down between the rock and the fallen tree, 
leaving it in such a position that anything in 
going in where the sheep was would be likely 
to step in it. 
“Ain’t you going to hitch the chain, Mr. 
Shaw?” 
“No, it won’t do. If it’s a big animal it 
would break the chain or pull its leg out of 
the trap; but if the chain ain’t hitched, it’ll drag 
the grapple along and leave a track that we 
can follow.” 
After he had placed the trap and stretched 
the chain out just as he wanted it, they found 
some soft moss, carried it to the brook and 
washed it, and while still wet, laid it on some 
flat spruce boughs, and taking it to the trap, 
carefully turned it on so as to cover both trap 
and chain. 
“There, I guess the critter won’t see that 
trap, and I hope he won’t smell it,” said the 
storekeeper, as he picked up the ax and started 
for home. 
“I shouldn’t think it would. I don’t believe 
I could tell where it was if I should go back 
in half an hour,” said Will. 
“That’s just what you want when you set a 
trap. You see, an animal can smell things a 
good ways off, and all the time he is coming 
he is looking to see what it is, and just as sure 
as he sees anything he don’t understand, he 
won’t go near it, even if he has to turn ’round 
and go back.” 
“I don’t believe anything could find that trap,” 
said Will. 
“Hump! A fox would find it the very first 
thing, and he wouldn't get into it, neither. If 
he couldn't get near the place any other way, 
he’d spring the trap and then step over it.” 
“Are they as cunning as that?” said Will. 
“Cunnin’!” said Uncle Shaw, “I guess they 
be cunnin’. When I was a boy I used to trap 
a lot of them, and I found out that I had to 
be putty smart if I wanted to get ahead of them. 
In those days red foxes wa’n’t worth much, but 
a black or a silver gray fox was a big prize, 
and if a fellow could get one of them, it would 
be worth more than all his other pelts. 
“One summer we had a frost about the middle 
of July that killed all the crdp and most every¬ 
thing, and that fall and winter it was a hard 
scratch for folks to get along and live. I was 
only fourteen year old, but I had to do about 
all I could to help dad get us all a living. There 
wa’n’t no work, for all the folks was as bad off 
as we was. Corn was so high nobody could buy 
it. When times was good a bushel of corn was 
pay for a day’s work; but that fall and winter 
nobody could get a bushel of corn for a week’s 
work. Nobody wanted to hire, and if there 
was one that did, there was so many arter the 
job that we folks out on the hill didn’t get no 
chance. We used to have to live on brake roots 
and sich things as we could dig out of the 
ground. 
“When it come fall I got a chance to go down 
to Portland with some men who was driving 
down some cattle. It was putty hot, dusty 
work, but I got a good living in this way, and 
when I got done 1 he paid me twenty shilling. 
One day as 1 was standing by a store door a 
carriage drove up and a lady got out and went 
into the store. By-an-by she came out with 
the storekeeper. He had a skin in his haiid 
and they was talking about it. She wanted it 
made up into something, but it was not large 
enough and he hadn’t got another. He tried 
to make her have something else, but she 
wouldn't, and got into her carriage and was 
drove off. 
“I stepped up and asked the storekeeper what 
kind of a skin that was. I’d seen a fox at home 
that looked just like it, and I didn’t know but 
he might want it. He told me that it was the 
skin of a silver-gray fox, and there were not any 
more. I said, ‘Yes there is. There’s one up 
to our house. I’ve seen him lots of times.’ 
‘Where do you live,’ says he kinder scornful. 
‘Up in Vermont,’ says I. ‘Wal,’ says he, ‘If 
you’ll bring me another skin like that, I’ll give 
you fifty dollars.’ And he went back into the 
store. 
“I walked along thinking about that fifty 
dollars. That was more than I could earn in 
the next two years, and I made up my mind I’d 
have that fox. How, I didn't know, but have 
him I must and would. 
“When I was walking along thinking how to 
get him, I came to a store where there was 
traps in the winder, and I went in. By-em-by I 
come out with five traps in my hand and the 
storekeeper had my twenty shilling. I was 
dreadful proud of them traps. One of them was 
the big one we just set, and the others was 
little ones. When I got back to the drover’s 
house and showed him my traps, he laughed 
and wanted to know how I was going to get 
home. I hadn’t thought anything about that. I 
could walk, but where was I going to get any¬ 
thing to eat? 
“I made up my mind to start the next morn¬ 
ing; and his wife gave me food for that day. 
I walked till that was all gone and then I stopped 
and worked for folks, to get some more grub. 
One place where 1 stopped they was picking 
apples, and I had all I could eat. I can remem¬ 
ber just how good them apples tasted and I’d 
like some of them this minute. 
“I got home after a while, and when I showed 
the folks what I had bought, they was mad. I 
told them I was going trapping, but I didn’t 
say nothing about the gray fox, because if I 
did somebody might find out about it and get it. 
I went over to old man Leroy’s and found out 
all I could about trapping and baiting, but he 
couldn’t tell much about steel traps for he had 
never used none. 
“The first night I set them I kind of expected 
to get one or two, but when I went out the 
next morning the traps was still set, but the 
baits was gone. When 1 see how they had 
fooled me, I set right down and studied out how 
they had done it; and the next night I set ’em 
different. But it was a long time before I got one, 
and then it wasn’t the one I wanted. 
“Nobody hadn’t seen him for a long time and 
I began to think I had paid too much for them 
traps. After a while I began to catch them a 
little faster, and I could see that I was going 
to get skins enough to pay for them traps anyway. 
“One day I was out by the brook and I see 
the old gray one. He was walking along by the 
side of the water catching frogs, and I thought 
to myself, ‘I’ll have you now, old chap; see if 
I don’t.’ , 
“That night I set a trap by the brook and 
baited it with a frog. In the morning the trap 
was sprung and the frog was gone. I tried it 
till I was tired, but it was no use. There was 
never nothing in the traps, and I kind of give 
it up and tried to 1 shoot him, but I could never 
get near enough when I had a gun. 
