What is the secret of the musk-rat's survival while the strong creatures of the chase like buffalo and timber-wolf have been almost exterminated? In the first place, settlers can't farm swamps; so the musk-rat thrives just as well in the swamps of New Jersey to-day as when the first white hunter set foot in America. Then musquash lives as heartily on owls and frogs and snakes as on water mussels and lily-pads. If one sort of food fails, the musk-rat has as omnivorous powers of digestion as the bear and changes his diet. Then he can hide as well in water as on land. And most important of all, musk-rat's family is as numerous as a cat's, five to nine rats in a litter, and two or three litters a year. These are the points that make for little musquash's continuance in spite of all that shot and trap can do. Having discovered what the dank whiff, half animal, half vegetable, signified, the trapper sets about finding the colony. He knows there is no risk of the little still-hunter carrying alarm to the other musk-rats. If he waits, it is altogether probable that the fleeing musk-rat will come up and swim straight for the colony. On the other hand, the musk-rat may have scurried overland through the rushes. Besides, the trapper observed tracks, tiny leaf-like tracks as of little webbed feet, over the soft clay of the marsh bank. These will lead to the colony, so the trapper rises and parting the rushes not too noisily, follows the little footprint along the margin of the swamp. Here the track is lost at the narrow ford of an inflowing stream, but across the creek lies a fallen poplar littered with--what? The feathers and bones of a dead owlet. Balancing himself--how much better the moccasins cling than boots!--the trapper crosses the log and takes up the trail through the rushes. But here musquash has dived off into the water for the express purpose of throwing a possible pursuer off the scent. But the tracks betrayed which way musquash was travelling; so the trapper goes on, knowing if he does not find the little haycock houses on this side, he can cross to the other. [Illustration: Fort MacPherson, now the most northerly post of the Hudson's Bay Company, beyond tree line; hence the houses are built of imported timber, with thatch roofs.]