Out of Context

Happy Friday

The Boy Scouts in A Trapper’s Camp
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess

“In the top of this I cut a V or crotch, and after trimming off the lower limbs of the tree I rest it in this crotch so that the butt end projects some distance and is three or four feet above the snow. About a foot from the butt end I flatten off a place for the trap and tie it in place with a bit of string and loop the chain around the trunk of the tree. Then I make a split in the end of the butt and in this fasten the bait. Mr. Marten runs u the tree to get the bait, steps in the trap and falls off and hangs there. He can’t twist a foot off or pull free in any way. Once he steps in the trap he’s a goner.

“Deadfalls work pretty well with marten. Ye’ll have a chance to see some, as I’ve got some right handy here, in some draws off the Hollow. Ye’ll understand them better by seeing than by me trying to tell you about them.”

“How about otter?” asked Hal.

“Steel traps for them, and we have to be some pertic’lar how we set ’em. There’s nary a critter that I know of more suspicious of man,” replied Alec. “In the fall and spring we get ’em with water sets. I got one this fall up at one of the beaver dams. I cut a hole in the middle of the dam so that the run-off from the pond was all through this but not enough to lower the pond and bring the beavers to stop up the hole. I made the passage only eight or nine inches wide and set the trap in the water at the upper end The first otter to come along tried to go through that opening and I had him.”