They could hardly wait for Trapper Jim to get through his chores.
Presently Jim went over several lots of hanging traps and selected those he wished to use on the first day.
How he seemed to handle certain ones fondly, as though they carried with them memories of stirring events in the dim past.
They all looked pretty much alike to the boys, but Jim undoubtedly had certain little familiar marks by means of which he recognized each individual trap. He mentioned some of their peculiar histories as he picked out his "lucky" traps.
"This one held two mink at a pop twice now, something I never knew to happen before," he remarked.
"And this old rusty one was lost a whole season. When I happened to find it, there was a piece of bone and some fur between the jaws, showing that the poor little critter had gnawed off its own foot rather than die of starvation. Made me fell bad, that did. A good trapper seldom allows such a thing to happen."
"Do mink really set themselves free that way?" asked Owen.
"They will, if given half a chance," was Jim's reply. "That's one reason we always try to fix it so that mink, otter, muskrats, fisher, and all animals that are trapped along the edge of streams manage to drown themselves soon after they are caught. It saves the pelt from being injured, too, by their crazy efforts to break away."
"And what of that trap over there? You seem to be taking mighty good care of it," said Max, who was deeply interested in everything the trapper was doing.
"Well, I hadn't ought to complain about that trap," came the answer. "Year before last it caught me a silver fox, as the black fox is called. And perhaps you know that a prime black fox pelt is worth as high as several thousand dollars."