Stránka:book 1912.djvu/227

General Scouting Outdoors 195 what animals live near there is no time better than when the snow is on the ground. I remember a hike of the snow-track iind that ajfforded myself and two boy friends a number of thrills, more than twenty-five years ago. There were three of us out on a prowl through the woods, looking for game. We saw no live thing, but there had been a fall of soft snow, a few days before; tracks were abundant, and I proposed that each of us take a track and follow it through thick and thin, until he found the beast, which, if Hving and free, was bound to be at the other end of the Une; or, until he found its den. Then, each should halloa to let the others know that his quarry was holed. Close by were the tracks of a mink and of two skunks. The Mink, track mink-track was my guide. It led southward. I followed it through swamps and brushwood, under logs, and into promising nooks. Soon I crossed the trail of the youngest boy, closely pursuing his skunk. Later, I met my friend of skunk No. 2, but our trails diverged. Now I came to a long hill down which my mink had tobogganed six or eight feet, after the manner of the otter. At last the trail came to an end in a perfect labyrinth of logs and brush. I went all around this. The snow was clear and smooth. My mink was certainly in this pile. So I let off a long halloa and got an answer from one of the boys, who left his trail and came to me within a few minutes. It happened that this one, CharUe, was carrying a bag with a ferret in it, that