"But I'm getting off my story of how we catch fur. Of course we have to have a number of sizes of traps. For muskrats we use No. 1; for mink No. 1 or No. 1-1/2. This is also big enough to hold fox, coon and fisher, but No. 2 is better. For marten we use mostly No. 1, but if there are signs of fisher or lynx we use No. 1-1/2 so if one happens to get into a trap it will hold him. These critters are so strong that they would pull out of the smaller trap."
"It's marten that you are after mostly, isn't it? I understood you to say that," Upton interposed.
"We're after anything we can get, but most of our sets are for marten," returned Alec. "In the fall we took a good many rats and will again in the spring, but at this time o' the year when everything is frozen 'tis only around spring holes that we can get a rat now and then since the law will no let us trap them at their houses. I dinna ken what these lawmakers want to meddle with a poor man's business for. So long as the rat is killed I dinna see what difference it makes where he's killed or how. We used to get good fur when it was no against the law to trap at the houses."
"Walt, here's a subject for a little missionary work. Alec is still an uncivilized savage in some things, especially when what he calls his rights to hunt and trap are concerned," Pat broke in.
Upton looked a bit puzzled. "I don't quite get the point about the house trapping," said he.
"You've seen muskrat houses a-plenty, haven't you?" asked Pat.
Walter nodded. "Well," continued Pat, "before this law was made trappers used to chop a hole in the side of a house and set a trap on the bed inside. Of course this drove the rats out, but they would soon be back, because there was nowhere else to go. By visiting the traps night and morning it was no trick at all to get all the rats. Now the law forbids this kind of trapping. Alec here doesn't approve of the law. He thinks that there are rats enough and to spare and he can't see that that kind of work is cutting his own nose off and killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Says you can clean all the rats out of a place and in time more will come to take their places, and I can't make him see it any different."
"How about beaver?" asked Walter, turning to the Scotchman. "Nowhere near as plentiful as they used to be, are they?"
The trapper shook his head. "Been trapped pretty near out of this country. I'm for protecting the beaver, all right, but rats is different. Ye couldn't trap out all the rats in a million years. There's rats enough and there always will be."
"Ever hear of the passenger pigeon?" asked Upton.