ck pointed to the trap. The bait was gone! Yes, somebody had been
meddling.

"I should like to know who," said Bertie.

Jack laughed.

"Follow them tracks, and may be you'll find him. It is easy getting out
of your trap as well as in."

Bertie eagerly examined the tracks.

"Musquash," said Jack.

"You don't mean to say that there has really been one in the trap?"

"Been in and out again. He has had one good meal, perhaps he will come
for another."

Bertie was so delighted at having caught something that at first he did
not mind its getting away at all; but when he came to reflect, he was
sorry to have lost such a prize. If he could only have carried it home
in triumph, how Charley would have stared!

"If that was my trap," said Jack, "I'd fix it."

"What would you do?"

"Tinker that spring so that it wouldn't hold fire, you bet."

"I did not know it needed tinkering."

"It would puzzle a musquash to get out of _my_ trap. I'd fix it so that
it would go off if he touched it with a whisker."

"I don't know how," said Bertie.

Jack gladly offered his services. Here was a chance to make a small
payment on account.

"If you would be so kind, and not mind my speaking cross just now."

"That's nothing," returned Jack, shortly. "Now if I can find anything
to 'couter' with."

He searched his pockets and brought up a coil of wire, some string, a
file, a pair of pincers, and so many different articles that Bertie
laughingly inquired if he was a travelling tool-chest.

"Pockets is handy," said Jack, "if they ain't holey. Whenever I come
across anything, I jest drops it in."

And so he did. Many things went into Jack's pockets that did not belong
there.

"Now hand us the trap, and we will get ready for the musquash."

"Will he come again, do you think?"

"What's to hinder? He knows what good grub is as well as you do. He will
be poking his nose in again as sure as you're born."

"I hope he will," said Bertie.

"Did you ever catch one?"

"No."

"Never skun one, I suppose?"

"Never."

"I have, heaps of all kinds. Sold 'em too. That's a neat trade."

"Selling them?"

"Skinning 'em."

"I expect it is," said Bertie.

CHAPTER VI.

A DEADLY SNARE FOR THE MUSK-RAT.

"I have been in the business, off and on," continued Jack, "ever since I
was the size of a hop toad."

"It pays, doesn't it?"

"That depends. Sometimes it does, and then again it don't. It's
accordin' to the critter. Mi