“They ain’t fit to catch now, and the young ones need the mothers.”

“I wouldn’t keep it.  I only want to make a drawing.”

“Guess that won’t harm it if you don’t keep it too long.  Have ye any boards?  We used to chop the whole thing out of a piece of Balsam wood or White Pine, but the more stuff ye find ready-made the easier it is.  Now I’ll show you how to make a ketchalive if ye’ll promise me never to miss a day going to it while it is set.”

The boys did not understand how any one could miss a day in visiting a place of so much interest, and readily promised.

So they made a ketchalive, or box-trap, two feet long, using hay wire to make a strong netting at one end.

“Now,” said the trapper, “that will catch Mink, Muskrat, Skunk, Rabbit—­’most anything, ’cording to where you put it and how you bait it.”

“Seems to me the Wakan Rock will be a good place to try.”

So the trap was baited with a fish head firmly lashed on the wire trigger.

In the morning, as Yan approached, he saw that it was sprung.  A peculiar whining and scratching came from it and he shouted in great excitement:  “Boys, boys, I’ve got him!  I’ve got the Mink!”

They seized the trap and held it cautiously up for the sunlight to shine through the bars, and there saw to their disgust that they had captured only the old gray Cat.  As soon as the lid was raised she bounded away, spitting and hissing, no doubt to hurry home to tell the Kittens that it was all right, although she had been away so long.

XV

A Visit from Raften

“Sam, I must have another note-book.  It’s no good getting up a new ‘massacree’ of Whites, ’cause there ain’t any note-books there, but maybe your father would get one the next time he drove to Downey’s Dump.  I suppose I’ll have to go on a peace party to ask him.”

Sam made no answer, but looked and listened out toward the trail, then said:  “Talk of the er—­Angels, here comes Da.”

When the big man strode up Yan and Guy became very shy and held back.  Sam, in full war-paint, prattled on in his usual style.

“Morning, Da; I’m yer kid.  Bet ye’r in trouble an’ want advice or something.”

Raften rolled up his pendulous lips and displayed his huge front tusks in a vast purple-and-yellow grin that set the boys’ hearts at ease.

“Kind o’ thought you’d be sick av it before now.”

“Will you let us stay here till we are?” chimed in Sam, then without awaiting the reply that he did not want, “Say, Da, how long is it since there was any Deer around here?”

“Pretty near twenty years, I should say.”

“Well, look at that now,” whispered the Woodpecker.

Raften looked and got quite a thrill for the dummy, half hidden in the thicket, looked much like a real deer.

“Don’t you want to try a shot?” ventured Yan.