Outing . heasantpens and the duck ponds. The farmertried his wits against the four-footed pi-rates and failed, and it began to look asif ridding the refuge of its pests wouldbe a problem unsolved when over in theMad River country the bird men discov-ered Dwight Webster, woodsman andphilosopher. Dwight was soft of speechand reserved in manner. There weregray hairs in his moustache and back in his chair behind thewood stove, he was the picture of inac-tion ; in the woods he stood lean andstraight as a beanpole, was tireless on thetrails, and went about his trapping witha shrewdne
Outing . heasantpens and the duck ponds. The farmertried his wits against the four-footed pi-rates and failed, and it began to look asif ridding the refuge of its pests wouldbe a problem unsolved when over in theMad River country the bird men discov-ered Dwight Webster, woodsman andphilosopher. Dwight was soft of speechand reserved in manner. There weregray hairs in his moustache and back in his chair behind thewood stove, he was the picture of inac-tion ; in the woods he stood lean andstraight as a beanpole, was tireless on thetrails, and went about his trapping witha shrewdness and a cunning that didcredit to several generations of Yankeehorse traders, trappers, and preachers—a combination difficult to beat. Dwight took the same traps which theScotchman had used, and within ten dayswas bringing out cat and fox pelts, alsocoons, skunks, and weasels with the regu-larity of a New York apartment housedweller lugging poultry and vegetablesuptown from Washington Market. What [19]. MAKING A CAME REFUGE 21 he did to the steels as he set them no oneknew but himself. That was all part ofthe magic he spread over the hills andalong the trails toward visiting naturalist declared thatWebster could produce a thirty-poundbobcat with the ease and grace of Kellartaking a kicking rabbit out of a gentle-mans silk hat! A cat of this size, and they run up toforty and beyond, is as big as a lean andhard coon dog; a natural born fighter2nd about as savage a denizen of theforest as lives in these days of six-cylin-der limousines. A trap usually gets himby only one leg, and it is then up to thetrapper to dispatch his quarry as best hemay. As the cat still has three legs, asmany paws with nails like knives, amouth full of teeth, and a powerful body,this is some job. I saw a forty-pound catkilled by a man who called himself atrapper, but who used two loads of buck-shot and a club to make the kill, and thecarcass was so battered that it was diffi-cult to tell
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