With Trapper Jim in the North Woods | Page 8

This nearly always turns
out to be the case with those who go into the wilderness for a spell. The
change from home comforts and soft beds to the hardships that attend
roughing it can be set down as the principal cause.
However, nothing serious occurred during the night calculated to
disturb them. It is true Toby did fall out of the upper berth once,
landing on a couple of the others with a thump, but then such a little
matter was hardly worth mentioning between friends.
And they could understand how Toby must be dreaming of his recent
trouble, as he hung over that terrible abyss by his hold on a single root.
Perhaps the root gave way in his dreams, and Toby made a frantic
effort to save himself.
Morning came at last.
Breakfast was cooked and eaten with considerable eagerness, for
immediately it was over the boys expected to accompany their host
while he made his first tour of the season, intending to set a few traps in
places that had been marked as favorable to the carrying out of his
business.
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."
"Hear that, will you!" exclaimed Steve.
"H-h-how much d-d-did you g-g-get for it?" asked Toby.
"Well," Jim went on to say, "it wasn't a Number One, but they allowed
I ought to get eight-fifty for it; which check was enclosed in the letter
I'll show you some day. I keep it to prove the truth of my story."
"A bully good day's work, eh?" remarked Steve.
"Best that ever came my way," admitted the other.

"Gee, wonder now if we'd be lucky enough to set eyes on a silver fox
worth a cool thousand or more?" ventured Bandy-legs.
"It is barely possible you may, boys," remarked the trapper; "because I
saw a beauty two or three times during the summer. And I'm kind of
hoping there may be some sort of magic about this same trap to coax
him to put his foot in it."
"A single fox skin fetching thousands of dollars!" remarked Steve, as if
hardly able to grasp it as the truth. "Whew, that beats finding pearls in
the shells of mussels all hollow!"
"Yes," Owen broke in, "and even Ted Shafter and his crowd hunting
wild ginseng roots and selling it to the wholesale drug house at big
money doesn't cut so much of a figure after all, does it?"
"One thing I want to ask you, boys, right in the start," the trapper took
occasion to say; "while you're up with me you must promise never to
shoot at a fox, a mink, a marten, an otter, or in fact any small
fur-bearing animal."
"We give you our word, all right, Uncle Jim," said Steve, readily.
"Of course," continued the old trapper, "my one reason for asking this
is to keep you from ruining good pelts. It would be pretty tough now if
after