VII[ToC]
A STREAK OF GOOD LUCK
When Bill was gone Bob went to work at once getting some traps that were hanging in the tilt in good working order. He set them and sprang them one after another, testing every one critically. They were practically all new ones, and Douglas, after his careful, painstaking manner, had left them in thorough repair. These were some additional traps that no place had been found for on the trail. There were only about twenty of them and Bob decided that he would set them along the shores of a lake beyond the tilt, where there were none, and look after them on the Saturday mornings that he would be lying up there. The next morning he put them on his toboggan, and shouldering his gun he started out.
Not far away he saw the first marten track in the edge of the spruce woods near the lake. Farther on there were more. This was very satisfactory indeed, and he observed to himself,
"The's a wonderful lot o' footin', and 'tis sure a' fine place for martens."
He went to work at once, and one after another the traps were set, some of them in a little circular enclosure made by sticking spruce boughs in the snow, to which a narrow entrance was left, and in this entrance the trap placed and carefully concealed under loose snow and the chain fastened to a near-by sapling. In the centre of each of the enclosures a bit of fresh partridge was placed for bait, to reach which the animal would have to pass over the trap. Where a tree of sufficient size was found in a promising place he chopped it down, a few feet above the snow, cut a notch in the top, and placed the trap in the notch, and arranged the bait over it in such a way that the animal climbing the stump would be compelled to stand upon the trap to secure the meat.
All the marten traps were soon set, but there still remained two fox traps. These he took to a marsh some distance beyond the lake, as the most likely place for foxes to be, for while the marten stays amongst the trees, the fox prefers marshes or barrens. Here, in a place where the snow was hard, he carefully cut out a cube, making a hole deep enough for the trap to set below the surface. A square covering of crust was trimmed thin with his sheath knife, and fitted over the trap in such a way as to completely conceal it. The chain was fastened to a stump and also carefully concealed. Then over and around the trap pieces of ptarmigan were scattered. This he knew was not good fox bait, but it was the best he had.
"Now if I were only havin' a bit o' scent 'twould help me," he commented as he surveyed his work.