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I pulled the skinning off the first time very well without a hitch outdoors. The next day I caught two more. However this time it was different. It was too cold to skin them outside so I had to do it in the basement. This time when I pulled the skin off the bodies the guts spilled out. It was of such a stink that I can remember it to this day. Actually I never caught another Muskrat after that and I wasn't sorry, what with the murder and gore, but mostly because of that ghastly smell.
I caught no more muskrats in the channel. Maybe I had gotten the only three that had been there. After the ice froze I had to change my tactics. I switched my traps to the swamp, the edge of which was across the channel at the south-east corner of the island. It was about a mile square with a channel running between it and the town proper and a large bay in the center of it, narrowing as it reached the south end. After the ice had frozen, one could walk all through it, most of which the reeds and cattails were anchored in the mud bottom it was usually under water by as much
as four to six feet. I found three Muskrat dens which were made mostly of cat-tail stalks and mud piled three or four feet high. The entrance was on the bottom and under water, so I could not lay my traps near the door.
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