anything we can get, but most of our sets are for marten,"
returned Alec. "In the fall we took a good many rats and will again in
the spring, but at this time o' the year when everything is frozen 'tis
only around spring holes that we can get a rat now and then since the
law will no let us trap them at their houses. I dinna ken what these
lawmakers want to meddle with a poor man's business for. So long as the
rat is killed I dinna see what difference it makes where he's killed or
how. We used to get good fur when it was no against the law to trap at
the houses."

"Walt, here's a subject for a little missionary work. Alec is still an
uncivilized savage in some things, especially when what he calls his
rights to hunt and trap are concerned," Pat broke in.

Upton looked a bit puzzled. "I don't quite get the point about the house
trapping," said he.

"You've seen muskrat houses a-plenty, haven't you?" asked Pat.

Walter nodded. "Well," continued Pat, "before this law was made trappers
used to chop a hole in the side of a house and set a trap on the bed
inside. Of course this drove the rats out, but they would soon be back,
because there was nowhere else to go. By visiting the traps night and
morning it was no trick at all to get all the rats. Now the law forbids
this kind of trapping. Alec here doesn't approve of the law. He thinks
that there are rats enough and to spare and he can't see that that kind
of work is cutting his own nose off and killing the goose that lays the
golden egg. Says you can clean all the rats out of a place and in time
more will come to take their places, and I can't make him see it any
different."

"How about beaver?" asked Walter, turning to the Scotchman. "Nowhere
near as plentiful as they used to be, are they?"

The trapper shook his head. "Been trapped pretty near out of this
country. I'm for protecting the beaver, all right, but rats is
different. Ye couldn't trap out all the rats in a million years. There's
rats enough and there always will be."

"Ever hear of the passenger pigeon?" asked Upton.

Alec signified that he never had. "Guess they dinna live in this
country," he added.

"I guess they don't," replied Upton drily. "Fact is they don't live in
any country any more. What is supposed to be the very last specimen died
in captivity in Cincinnati last year. A reward of several thousand
dollars for proof of a single pair nesting anywhere in America has stood
for several years. But