IX

THE MINK

In walking through the woods one day in early winter, we read upon the
newly fallen snow the record of a mink's fright the night before. The
mink had been traveling through the woods post-haste, not along the
watercourses where one sees them by day, but over ridges and across
valleys. We followed his track some distance to see what adventures he
had met with. We tracked him through a bushy swamp, and saw where he had
left it to explore a pile of rocks, then where he had taken to the swamp
again, and where he had entered the more open woods. Presently the track
turned sharply about, and doubled upon itself in long hurried strides.
What had caused the mink to change his mind so suddenly? We explored a
few paces ahead, and came upon a fox track. The mink had probably seen
the fox stalking stealthily through the woods, and the sight had
doubtless brought his heart into his mouth. I think he climbed a tree,
and waited till the fox had passed. His track disappeared amid a clump
of hemlocks, and then reappeared again a little beyond them. It
described a big loop around, and then crossed the fox track only a few
yards from the point where its course was interrupted. Then it followed
a little watercourse, went under a rude bridge in a wood-road, then
mingled with squirrel tracks in a denser part of the thicket. If the
mink met a muskrat or a rabbit in his travels, or came upon a grouse, or
quail, or a farmer's henroost, he had the supper he was in quest of.

[Illustration: MINK]

I followed a mink's track one morning upon the snow till I found where
the prowler had overtaken and killed a muskrat by a stone wall near a
little stream. The blood upon the snow and the half-devoured body of the
rat told the whole story. The mink is very fond of muskrats, and
trappers often use this flesh to bait their traps. I wonder if he has
learned to enter the under-water hole to the muskrat's den, and then
seek him in his chamber above, where the poor rat would have little
chance to escape.

The mink is only a larger weasel, and has much of the boldness and
bloodthirstiness of that animal. One summer day my dog Lark and I were
sitting beside a small watercourse in the woods, when I saw a mink
coming up the stream toward us. I sat motionless till the mink was
within a few feet of us, when the dog saw him. As the dog sprang, the
mink darted under a large flat stone. Lark was very fierce, and seemed
to say to me, "Just lift up