CHAPTER VII.
INDIAN METHODS.
Oftentimes while walking through the winter wood I find the track of a mink, that starts or ends in a brook or pond, says a New England trapper. To set a trap in this case, if the snow is light, I do as follows:
First, I use a drag around the woods where the track is seen. To make this I kill an old hen or rooster, split it open, and mix equal parts of fish oil and the juice that comes with oysters. If the track is very old, I add an equal part of oil of assafoetida, and put the mixture inside the hen, leaving the entrails in and sew it up loosely. Then I tie it to a rope, and starting at the point where the track leaves the water, drag it through the woods, not very far, ending in the brook again. At several places along the line I secrete traps, exactly in the path made by the drag.
A mink, striking the scent will follow it, and, there being no bait to scare him or arouse his suspicions, will run along the track until he gets into one of the traps. This is a good set to use in woods where a bait would mean having your traps lifted by John Sneakum. I don't know how it will work with others, but I have had fine success with it, especially in the cases of old "bait-shy mink."
Here is another set shown me by an old half-breed Indian. We were in a light canoe, and were paddling up a little reed-fringed brook, from ten to thirty feet wide. In the weeds were several muskrat houses. As it was spring, they were all finished and the rats were no longer working on them. The old man set two traps on the house, and barely under water. Then he put a few drops of the scent that is found in a sack just under the root of the mink's tail, on a leaf on the very top of the muskrat house; and then placed a small piece of muskrat with the fur on, beside the scent, fastening it with a skewer.
He said, "mink, come 'long and smell 'nother mink an' muskrat on top house. He clim' up, get caught, an' all drown good." "But," said I, "muskrats will climb up too, 'cause you've got muskrat meat for bait." "Oh-h-h no!" he chuckled. "Muskrat he heap 'fraid of mink. We have mink to-morrer-wonca, numpaw, yawha, yawminee mink (1, 2, 3, 4 mink). You see? Then you no call ol' In'jun big fool." Sure enough next morning he had shagipee (6) mink to show for as many sets. The principle was that the muskrat wouldn't climb up, for he would see the fur and smell the mink scent, and think it was a mink.