Running to the bank the trapper is surprised to see the little blood-sucker making off with the prey instead of deserting it as all creatures akin to the weasel family usually do. That means a family of mink somewhere near, to be given their first lesson in bird-hunting, in mink-hawking by the body of this poor, dead, foolish gyrfalcon. By a red mark here, by a feather there, crushed grass as of something dragged, a little webbed footprint on the wet clay, a tiny marking of double dots where the feet have crossed a dry stone, the trapper slowly takes up the trail of the mink. Mink are not prime till the late fall. Then the reddish fur assumes the shades of the russet grasses where they run until the white of winter covers the land. Then--as if nature were to exact avengement for all the red slaughter the mink has wrought during the rest of the year--his coat becomes dark brown, almost black, the very shade that renders him most conspicuous above snow to all the enemies of the mink world. But while the trapper has no intention of destroying what would be worthless now but will be valuable in the winter, it is not every day that even a trapper has a chance to trail a mink back to its nest and see the young family. But suddenly the trail stops. Here is a sandy patch with some tumbled stones under a tangle of grasses and a rivulet not a foot away. Ah--there it is--a nest or lair, a tiny hole almost hidden by the rushes! But the nest seems empty. Fast as the trapper has come, the mink came faster and hid her family. To one side, the hawk had been dropped among the rushes. The man pokes a stick in the lair but finds nothing. Putting in his hand, he is dragging out bones, feathers, skeleton musk-rats, putrid frogs, promiscuous remnants of other quarries brought to the burrow by the mink, when a little cattish _s-p-i-t!_ almost touches his hand. His palm closes over something warm, squirming, smaller than a kitten with very downy fur, on a soft mouse-like skin, eyes that are still blind and a tiny mouth that neither meows nor squeaks, just _spits!--spits!--spits!_--in impotent viperish fury. All the other minklets, the mother had succeeded in hiding under the grasses, but somehow this one had been left. Will he take it home and try the experiment of rearing a young mink with a family of kittens?