feathers or snow; fasten to a stick that can be dragged a short distance. I bait with chicken, rabbit, birds and mice. Fish is also good. Brush away your tracks and do not approach too close. If the traps are undisturbed, I leave them for a week. Frequently mink do not come out every night.

When setting where they go under the ice, I use a No. 2 Jump Trap. If the water is not too deep, lay two sticks in the bottom of the stream about two inches apart. Between these I lay bait, generally mice. Set trap, and fasten it to a stick on top of the ice. Cover trap with moss and leaves and you will generally get him, or, at least, that is my luck.

I will always remember my first mink. I found the den. They went under the ice and the hole was below the water. I set my trap carefully, baited with sapsucker and the next morning I had him. Set trap back and caught another one.

CHAPTER VII.
INDIAN METHODS.

Oftentimes while walking through the winter wood I find the track of a mink, that starts or ends in a brook or pond, says a New England trapper. To set a trap in this case, if the snow is light, I do as follows:

First, I use a drag around the woods where the track is seen. To make this I kill an old hen or rooster, split it open, and mix equal parts of fish oil and the juice that comes with oysters. If the track is very old, I add an equal part of oil of assafoetida, and put the mixture inside the hen, leaving the entrails in and sew it up loosely. Then I tie it to a rope, and starting at the point where the track leaves the water, drag it through the woods, not very far, ending in the brook again. At several places along the line I secrete traps, exactly in the path made by the drag.

A mink, striking the scent will follow it, and, there being no bait to scare him or arouse his suspicions, will run along the track until he gets into one of the traps. This is a good set to use in woods where a bait would mean having your traps lifted by John Sneakum. I don't know how it will work with others, but I have had fine success with it, especially in the cases of old "bait-shy mink."

Here is another set shown me by an old half-breed Indian. We were in a light canoe, and were paddling up a little reed-fringed brook, from ten to thirty feet wide. In the weeds were several muskrat houses. As it was spring, they were all finished and the rats were no longer working on them. The old man set two traps on the house, and barely under water. Then he put a few drops of the scent that is found in a sack just under the root of the mink's tail, on a leaf on the very top of the muskrat house; and then placed a small piece of muskrat with the fur on, beside the scent, fastening it with a skewer.

He said, "mink, come 'long and smell 'nother mink an' muskrat on top house. He clim' up, get caught, an' all drown good." "But," said I, "muskrats will climb up too, 'cause you've got muskrat meat for bait." "Oh-h-h no!" he chuckled. "Muskrat he heap 'fraid of mink. We have mink to-morrer-wonca, numpaw, yawha, yawminee mink (1, 2, 3, 4 mink). You see? Then you no call ol' In'jun big fool." Sure enough next morning he had shagipee (6) mink to show for as many sets. The principle was that the muskrat wouldn't climb up, for he would see the fur and smell the mink scent, and think it was a mink.

INDIAN TRAPPER.

Mink often follow muskrat trails, especially in the fall before the snow comes. To set a trap in the trail would mean to catch a rat, and make a meal for a mink; so I post a rooster's head about two feet from the trail and set a No. 1 1/2 trap under it. The rat isn't likely to leave the trail for the head, but the mink will, unless he is hot after a muskrat.

When brooks unite and form a "Y" there is often a little sand pit left in the crotch of the "Y." I hang a piece of muskrat meat with mink scent on it upon a small stick leaning out over my trap, which is set in two or three inches of water, and staked out so as to drown the mink.

An Indian subscriber of the Hunter-Trader-Trapper and who writes of his experiences occasionally to that interesting magazine, in one season caught with dog and trapped in Northwestern Pennsylvania 104 mink. The name of this Indian is John Lord, and he has trapped as far west as California. The illustration shows him to be a young man. The picture shown here was taken in 1905 when he was hunting and trapping in Pennsylvania.

The 104 mink were caught during the season of 1905-6, and as the pelts were high then it can be seen that he makes considerable money. The fact that he caught that number is pretty well established by several well known parties. John is an Iroquois and a good fellow and trapper.

CHAPTER VIII.
MINK TRAPPING ON THE PRAIRIE.

As there has not been much written on mink trapping on the prairie, I will give a few hints for the benefit of young prairie trappers, on trapping mink, says a Minnesota trapper. In the first place the steel trap is about the only trap that can be used; there being no timber over large portions of the Northwest and Canada.

I wait till ice is frozen over the runways and ponds, then I go at it making a circuit of the runways. I find where the mink go out from the shore to some muskrat's home, which will have a pole in it above water. I set two traps there, then look around. Close by I will find a small dump of trash made by muskrats, where the mink go to dung. I set two or three traps so when set and covered with fine brush they will be even with the surface and looking natural. I will then go on shore which is generally flat, following the mink signs I will find where they have dug into an old muskrat run. I put two or three traps around here close together so when caught the mink soon gets in two traps, then he is there to stay.

I use no bait when setting at a place like this; the first mink caught smells the place up so there is no need of any patent scent. Every mink that gets on that swamp, if it is not over two or three miles long, will visit that place in one or two nights. At a place like that I leave the traps all winter and will catch as many mink as a trapper that scatters twice as many traps, one in a place, all over the swamp.

There are one or two places in every swamp or pond where nearly every mink will visit. It may be a hole in a bank or an old muskrat house. You can tell it by the signs or by tracks in the snow. There is the place, then you are sure of your mink.

I make small iron stakes to fasten my traps where I can get nothing for a drag. I make them myself. Take a rod 1/4 inch thick, cut in lengths 8 inches long, turn one end when hot over the ring of trap chain, sharpen the other end. I only lost one mink last winter by gnawing his foot off. A fish is good bait for mink, also fish oil and fresh rabbits or birds. When buying traps, buy the best, they are the cheapest in the long run.

Some trappers buy the cheap traps and lose enough fur the first season to pay for good traps.

I find that it pays to stretch and care for furs well. I have bought furs that were not worth one third price. Mink were stretched 6 inches wide at tail tapering to a point at nose, being 8 inches long, when they should have been 16 or 20 inches and 3 to 4 wide. Again I have got them that they were stretched so tight you could see through them.

CAMPING OUT.

Some trappers claim the mink is very sly and hard to trap, others that he is very easy to trap, and that they could catch an unlimited number if the mink were only plentiful in their locality. I always like to read anything I can find on this subject, says an Illinois