me, were three feet in
thickness; and the tough mud was frozen to the hardness and consistency
of a fire-brick. But after getting through this shell, where should we
find the inmates? Why, most likely, we should not find them at all
after all this labour. So said my companion, telling me at the same
time that there were subterranean, or rather subaqueous, passages, by
which the muskrats would be certain to make off under the ice long
before he had penetrated near them.

"I was quite puzzled to know how we should proceed. Not so Old Foxey.
He well knew what he was about, and pitching his traps down by one of
the `houses,' commenced operations.

"The one he had selected stood out in the lake, some distance from its
edge. It was built entirely upon the ice; and, as the hunter well knew,
there was a hole in its floor by which the animals could get into the
water at will. How then was he to prevent them from escaping by the
hole, while we removed the covering or roof? This was what puzzled me,
and I watched his movements with interest.

"Instead of digging into the house, he commenced cutting a hole in the
ice with his ice-chisel about two feet from the edge of the mud. That
being accomplished, he cut another, and another, until four holes were
pierced forming the corners of a square, and embracing the house of the
muskrat within.

"Leaving this house, he then proceeded to pierce a similar set of holes
around another that also stood out on the open lake. After that he went
to a third one, and this and then a fourth were prepared in a similar
manner.

"He now returned to the first, this time taking care to tread lightly
upon the ice and make as little stir as possible. Having arrived there,
he took out from his bag a square net made of twisted deer-thongs, and
not much, bigger than a blanket. This in a most ingenious manner he
passed under the ice, until its four corners appeared opposite the four
holes; where, drawing them through, he made all last and `taut' by a
line stretching from one corner to the other.

"His manner of passing the net under the ice I have pronounced
ingenious. It was accomplished by reeving a line from hole to hole by
means of the long slender pole already mentioned. The pole, inserted
through one of the holes, conducted the line, and was itself conducted
by means of two forked sticks that guided it, and pushed it along to the
other holes. The line being attached to the comers of t