Baby Pitcher's Trials Part 7

"Who then?"

Jack pointed to the trap. The bait was gone! Yes, somebody had been meddling.

"I should like to know who," said Bertie.

Jack laughed.

"Follow them tracks, and may be you'll find him. It is easy getting out of your trap as well as in."

Bertie eagerly examined the tracks.

"Musquash," said Jack.

"You don't mean to say that there has really been one in the trap?"

"Been in and out again. He has had one good meal, perhaps he will come for another."

Bertie was so delighted at having caught something that at first he did not mind its getting away at all; but when he came to reflect, he was sorry to have lost such a prize. If he could only have carried it home in triumph, how Charley would have stared!

"If that was my trap," said Jack, "I'd fix it."

"What would you do?"

"Tinker that spring so that it wouldn't hold fire, you bet."

"I did not know it needed tinkering."

"It would puzzle a musquash to get out of _my_ trap. I'd fix it so that it would go off if he touched it with a whisker."

"I don't know how," said Bertie.

Jack gladly offered his services. Here was a chance to make a small payment on account.

"If you would be so kind, and not mind my speaking cross just now."

"That's nothing," returned Jack, shortly. "Now if I can find anything to 'couter' with."

He searched his pockets and brought up a coil of wire, some string, a file, a pair of pincers, and so many different articles that Bertie laughingly inquired if he was a travelling tool-chest.

"Pockets is handy," said Jack, "if they ain't holey. Whenever I come across anything, I jest drops it in."

And so he did. Many things went into Jack's pockets that did not belong there.

"Now hand us the trap, and we will get ready for the musquash."

"Will he come again, do you think?"

"What's to hinder? He knows what good grub is as well as you do. He will be poking his nose in again as sure as you're born."

"I hope he will," said Bertie.

"Did you ever catch one?"

"No."

"Never skun one, I suppose?"

"Never."

"I have, heaps of all kinds. Sold 'em too. That's a neat trade."

"Selling them?"

"Skinning 'em."

"I expect it is," said Bertie.

CHAPTER VI.

A DEADLY SNARE FOR THE MUSK-RAT.

"I have been in the business, off and on," continued Jack, "ever since I was the size of a hop toad."

"It pays, doesn't it?"

"That depends. Sometimes it does, and then again it don't. It's accordin' to the critter. Mink, now, fitches a fancy price when you can catch 'em. They are a mighty scarce article now-a-days. But rabbits ain't worth shucks. It is a job to skin 'em, they are so tender; and they won't fetch nothing."

"How about musk-rats?"

"Got an eye to business, eh?"

"If I am lucky enough to catch one, I should like to sell the skin."

"Well, musquash pays if it is skun right."

"How is that? A skin is a skin, isn't it?"

"Yes; but a skin with the head on is one thing, and a skin with the head off is another, as you will find out if you ever try it on."

"I shouldn't think that would make any difference."

"It does a heap. A quarter is the most you can get without the head."

"And with it?"