“Now I want to understand something about this business, before we commence operations We’re after minks, and nothing else; and I don’t want you to endanger a fellow’s life by getting him into any more wolf scrapes, or any thing of that kind.”
“All right,” answered Frank, with a laugh. “I’ll not get you into any scrape to-day.”
This satisfied Harry, and he was ready to begin the hunt. They found plenty of mink tracks on the bank of the creek. After eating their dinner, they commenced following up some of them, and, before night, succeeded, with Brave’s assistance, in capturing two large minks, after which they returned to the cabin, well satisfied with their day’s work.
They found Uncle Joe and his brother seated at the supper-table, and a large plate full of honey, which was rapidly disappearing before their attacks, proved that they also had been successful. Archie and George came in shortly after dark, tired and hungry. A fox-skin, which the former threw down in the corner, bore testimony to the fact that Sport was losing none of those hunting qualities of which his young master so often boasted. The day’s hunt had been successful on all hands; and the boys being pretty well tired out, the trapper’s stories were omitted, and all the inmates of the cabin sought their couches at an early hour.
The next morning the boys were “fresh and fierce” for the woods again, and once more started out in their respective directions, leaving Uncle Joe and the trapper seated before the fire, solacing themselves with their pipes. Frank and Harry, as usual, went together; the latter, as on the previous morning, exacting a promise that Frank would not get him into any “scrapes,” to which the latter, as before, readily agreed, little dreaming what was to happen before night.
A few moments’ walk brought them to the place at which they had set their first trap, in a hollow stump, where they had noticed a multitude of “mink signs,” as the trapper would have called them, and as Harry bent down and looked into the stump, Frank exclaimed:
“Look at these tracks; somebody besides ourselves has been here.”
“Yes, some other hunters, I suppose,” answered Harry, peering into the stump. “I hope they were gentlemen enough not to interfere with our arrangements here. But where’s that trap gone to?”
“These tracks were not made by white persons,” said Frank, bending over and examining them, “for the hunters in this part of the country all wear boots. These fellows wore moccasins, and the tracks all toe in.”