And that night Chip was back in the wilderness with Old Cy and Ray in thought, and so homesick for them that she cried herself to sleep.
CHAPTER XV
“While yer argufyin’ with a fool, jes’ figger thar’s two on ’em.”–Old Cy Walker.
The streams and swamps contiguous to this lake were well adapted for the habitat of mink, muskrat, otter, fisher, and those large fur-bearing animals, the lynx and lucivee, and here a brief description of where such animals exist, and how they are caught, may be of interest.
The habits of the muskrat, the least cunning of these, are so well known that they merit only a few words. They are amphibious animals, their food is succulent roots, bulbs, and bark, and they frequent small, marshy ponds, sluggish streams, and swamps. In summer they conceal themselves by burrowing into soft banks; in winter they erect houses of sedge-grass, roots, and mud, and are caught in small steel traps set in shallow water at the entrance of their paths out of lake or stream.
Mink, marten, otter, and fisher are much alike in shape and habit. All belong to the same family, but vary in size, also slightly in the matter of food. Mink and marten live on fish, frogs, birds, mice, etc.; otter on fish and roots; and fishers, as their name implies, subsist largely on fish. All these are more valuable fur-bearing animals than muskrats. Their abiding places are swamps and shallow streams, in the banks of which they burrow, and they are usually caught in steel traps baited with fish or meat.
The lucivee, or lynx, and bobcat, more ferocious and cunning than their smaller cousins, roam the woods and swamps, live on smaller animals, hide in caves, crevices, and hollow trees, and they as well as otter occasionally are caught in deadfalls.
Old Cy, familiar as he was with the homes, habits, and the manner of catching these cunning animals, soon began his trap-setting campaign. A few dozen steel traps were first set along the stream and lagoons entering the lake, and then he and Ray pushed up Beaver Brook, and leaving their canoe, followed its narrow valley in search of suitable spots to set the more elaborated deadfalls, which also merit description.
A deadfall is made by placing one end of a suitably sized log–one perhaps fifteen feet long and a foot in diameter–on a figure four trap, so adjusted that its spindle end, to which the bait is secured, shall be poised beneath the upraised end of the log. Alongside of this log a double row of stakes is driven to form a pen with entrance leading to the bait. When this deadly contrivance is properly adjusted, the log and its pen of stakes is concealed with green boughs piled lightly over it, and all the hungry lynx sees is a narrow opening under green boughs, and in it a tempting morsel awaiting him. As those creatures, as well as now and then an otter, are sure to roam up and down all small streams, a spot where one emerges from a narrow defile, or joins a larger one, is usually selected for a deadfall.