“Teddy, you’re the worst I ever met,” groaned Link, and then after the laughter had subsided he added: “I’ll get square for that. Just you wait and see!” CHAPTER XXI THE FIGHT OF THE PINE MARTENS “Now, boys,” said Joel Runnell on the following morning, after all of the young hunters had enjoyed a good night’s rest, “I’m going to get you at something new.” “What is it?” queried several, in chorus. “So far all the game we have had has either been caught by a hook and line or brought down with a gun. Now I’m going to show you how to set traps for rabbits and other small animals, and also how to spear some big fish through a hole in the ice.” “That’s the talk!” cried Joe. “I’ve been wanting to know something about traps for years.” “Well, a small trap isn’t much of a thing to make,” answered the old hunter. “I know how to make one kind of a rabbit trap,” came from Bart. “My uncle showed me how to make it.” “There are a good many kinds of traps, aren’t there?” asked Fred. At this Joel Runnell smiled. “I should say so, my boy. I can make at least a dozen kinds, and I once knew a hunter from Canada who boasted of being able to make forty-six different kinds of traps and death-falls.” “Gracious! that man hadn’t much use for a gun,” was Harry’s comment. “It’s a good thing to know something about traps,” went on the old hunter. “There might come a time when you were out in the woods and mighty hungry, without a single charge of powder left. In such a case a trap may keep you from starving to death.” The old hunter told them that he would first set a few rabbit and squirrel traps, and after that a death-fall for larger animals. “I think I can locate the run of the rabbits on this island pretty well,” said he. A good hot breakfast was had, and as soon as it was over Teddy insisted on washing up the few dishes which had been used. Then off they set in a crowd, satisfied that nobody would come to disturb their new shelter during an absence of only an hour or two. Joel Runnell led the way around the cliff and then into a thicket where the pine trees fairly touched the ground. “Here are hundreds of traps fairly waiting for us,” he said. “I don’t see any,” said Teddy, gazing around vacantly. “You’ll see one in a few minutes.” Finding a spot that suited him, Joel Runnell cleared away some of the snow, which was but a few inches deep. Then, with a hatchet he had brought along, he cut two short sticks and near the top of each cut a sharp notch, the opening pointing downward. “Now I’ll drive these two sticks into the ground, about eight inches apart,” said he; and put them down until the notches he had cut were less than a foot from the soil. “Joe,” he added, “you cut a strong, flat stick that will reach from one notch to the other.”