"Ye must take care to leave everything in a perfectly natural state. I wade up the outlet and take care not to touch the banks. Some trappers boil the traps in hemlock boughs to kill the scent. Others just leave them over night in running water. I wear clean gloves to handle the traps. There are a lot of dry sets, some with bait and some without, the latter being used in frequented runways. A very good set is to find an old moss-covered log or stump and set the trap on the highest point, covering it so that the whole thing looks just as it did before. Then toss a big bait like a muskrat or rabbit eight or ten feet from it. Mr. Fox is always suspicious, and before he goes too near anything like that he will go to the highest point to look the ground over. That's when ye get him. Of course, there mustn't be any other high point for him to get on."
"You spoke of scents, Alec. I've read about them. What are they, anyhow?" asked Upton.
For answer, Alec got up and went to a corner of the cabin and brought forth an old fruit jar. Pat grinned. "Here's some," said Alec simply as he unscrewed the cover while the boys crowded around. They took one whiff and then fairly tumbled over each other to get away.
"Cover it up! Take it away!" howled Hal, holding his nose. "I won't be able to eat a square meal for a week."
"Me too!" yelped Sparrer. "Dey has some awful smells in New York, but dis is de limit."
"Jumping crickets! I should think that stuff would drive things away and not attract 'em!" exclaimed Upton. "What is it, anyhow?"
"Skunk fat and mice cut up and put in the jar and hung in the sun until thoroughly rotted, and then some skunk and muskrat scent added. Sorry you don't like it," replied Pat. "A drop or two judiciously used seems to be a great attraction for foxes and some other critters. Alec has got another brand if you would like to sample it—fish oil made by cutting up fish and letting them rot in the same way. It's a mighty good scent."
"No, thanks!" cried Hal hastily. "We'll take your word for it. What about those stretching boards?"
"I'm coming to that," replied Alec. "Raw furs are handled in two ways, 'cased' and 'open.' Mink, marten, fox, fisher, weasel, muskrat, skunk and bob cat are 'cased.' That is what these boards are for. We skin 'em by cutting loose around the feet and then cutting down the back of the hindlegs to and around the vent and then skin the hindlegs carefully, and also the tail. Then the skin is turned back and stripped off the body wrong side out to the ears, taking as little fat as possible. The ears are cut off close to the head, and the skin is cut loose around the eyes and nose. The easiest way is to hang the critter up by the hindlegs after skinning out these and the tail.
"These small boards Pat and I are making are for muskrats in the spring. For marten, mink, otter, fisher and such like we use longer, narrower boards; that is, they are narrower in proportion to their length. I'll show you some presently. The best boards are those with a narrow strip ripped out of the middle for the whole length. This makes a wedge or tongue. Of course it should be tapered. This makes it possible to use the board for various size animals and to stretch the skin to its fullest extent. It also makes it easy to remove a skin from the board, as taking out the wedge at once loosens the whole board.