"Very true, Smoky, there has been some
animal in the trap, but human hands took it out, for no animal leaves
a trap, clog and all, lying free in that way, with the trap chain
slack in that way." It only required a glance about to see that there
had been a coon in the trap and had been fast. Just up on the bank
there lay the club that they had used to kill the coon with. After
giving my opinion of the gentleman that had taken the coon, I began
to reset the trap again where it was before.

Smoky objected to again setting the trap there only for some one else
to get the game again, but I told Smoky that lightning rarely struck
twice in the same place so we would set the trap again. We started up
the hollow and were soon discussing politics again until we came to
where the next trap was setting. Just before we came to the trap,
Smoky picked up an empty cartridge shell. A few yards farther on lay
the second trap which had had a fox in it, as was plain to be seen by
the tooth marks on the small brush and by the fur on the trap. That
the fox had been shot was evident by the amount of fur that was lying
on the ground where the animal had been caught.

This was more than I could stand without giving vent to my feelings.
After trying for some time to find words to give the case justice,
and failing, Smoky remarked with all the coolness imaginable, that
there was one thing certain about it, that it was a Democrat that
took the fox and coon. I was astonished at the remark and asked what
he meant. "Well, if it had been a Republican that had taken them, he
would have taken the traps, too."

We were now getting our trap line down to a few traps along the main
creek, and we now worked those traps to the best of our skill, as we
wished to get our share of the mink. We had not put out any mink
traps until the first of November. The weather had been very dry and
warm but as it had now turned cold and I found that I could not stand
the cold as I once could, I told Smoky that we would take what mink
pelts we could get in a few days and pull stakes. Smoky replied that
that sort of "chin music" suited him. So after ten or twelve days of
mink trapping we pulled the rest of the traps and went home, having
to my idea a pleasant time.

Smoky agreed that the time was all right but he thought that the
society was a little slow for him, saying that if it had not been for
the boys on the coon hunt we would not have seen a half dozen persons
sinc