"Well, shoot him dead, of course; then let him lie there three days. All that smell will come back to him, no matter how far off it's gone. It'll all come up out of the boards, too, and go into him, and you can carry him away by the tail and never know a skunk's been on the farm. It's curious how a skunk can make a smell, but never have any; and it's curious how it all returns to him when he dies. Most things are curious, ain't they?" I agreed that they were.
But to return to my family in the ravine. The next morning I went back to the glen and caught three of these young ones. They made no resistance,—merely warned me to be careful,—and I took them to the house. For several days I fed them fish and fruit until they became so tame that I could handle them without caution. But they were hopelessly dull and uninteresting pets, never showing the least intelligence, curiosity, or affection. I finally turned them loose among their native rocks, and they strayed off as unconcerned as if they had not spent two weeks away from home, shut up in a soap-box.
There seems to be little excuse, in this broad land of opportunity, for any one's going into skunk-farming for a business; but these animals have a good market value, and so, in spite of a big country and rich resources, our hands are so eager for gold that every summer we hear of new skunk farms. Still, why not raise skunks? They are more easily kept than pigs or pigeons; they multiply rapidly; their pelts make good (?) marten-skins; and I see no reason why any one having a piece of woodland with a stream in it, and a prairie or an ocean on each side of it, could not fence it in, stock it with skunks, and do a profitable and withal an interesting business.
[FROM RIVER-OOZE TO TREE-TOP]
