The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-14
THE WAKE OF THE MUsKRAr.

%@-A< VI @--AAL AG ALAE SANSAaAA-A--
 It is a memory of fifty years ago. The scene is the bank of an old canal that after the advent of the Boston and Providence railroad had fallen into a state of neglected desuetude. It was a glorious October evening: not breath of air stirred the tinted tops of the tall naples already coloring from the early frosts. Overhead, riding high in the heavens, the full orbed queen of night cast it's soft radiance over the lands cape, save where the thick pines that crowded closely to the side of the tow path threw their dark shadows over it to the water edge.
 Beneath one of the largest trees that command a long reach of the canal stood boy with a gun and black dog with complicated pedigree. All around him was the silence of the desert. Rather more than mile away on the banks of the Blackstone lay the quiet little village from whence he had come, but no sound of industry or revelry reached his ears. Half an hour passed. The silence oppressed the boy and he stopped and patted the dog by his side, whose only response was a grateful look upward and a gentle wag of the tail. A faint sound like football reached their ears, and startled by it in this lonely spot the boy and dog shrank further back into the shadow. Along the towpath came a tail, spare, gray haired man with a long, single-barrei gun on his shoulder. a, veritable Natty Bumpo, whom the boy instantly reco- gnized as old Sol Rogers, known through all the neighboring villages for his success ill shooting and trapping muskrats. Just below the boy he stopped over the low bank and drew to the surface a wire trap about three feet square by one foot in depth, andfinding it empty carefully replaced it and went on down the path. Rather discouraged at the appearance of so formidable competitor, the boy stood few mo- ments contemplating quest of other fields, when short distance above him and a few feet from the opposite bank black spot suddenly emerged from DGIlGdtli lllS LpL AuSS NA ShAN | water. So silently had it appeared that not ripple was visible. For a moment it remained perfectly still, and then began moving slowly across the stream towards him, leaving behind a large diverging wake that sparkled in the soft moonlight like strings of pearls. The boys heart began to beat furiously; the black dog stood as if carved in ebony, and the eyes of both 1 were fixed upon the apex of that V- shaped ripple. Many. years have passed since then. but the exquisitely I fascinating suspense, the ecstacy of that moment, will never be forgotten. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the little three dollar gun, that had never before l been pointed at any game larger than 8 red squirrel, was brought to the | check long before the point of that rip pie came within it's limited range. Would he see us? Would he take the alarm? Dive? were the agonizing thoughts that coursed their way like lightning through the boys brain and still the wake grew wider and wider as the black point came steadily to-
 wards him.
 The trigger was pressed and the re- port, light as it was, seemed startling ly loud to the boy in that silent valley. The shot had hardly left the barrel
 when the black dog sprang with his
 full strength from the low bank Into
 the water and a. moment later laid at
 the boys feet muskrat that meas ured full two feet from tip to tip.
 Since then the boy has sought and found the elk and the grizzly in their
 strongholds of the Rockies and the Si-
 erra Nevadas; the antelope and buffa- To, when "in miles and in millions they crowded the plains of Montana and Wyoming, often heard the sound of his rifle. And one still moonlight night such as he has attempted to de-
 scribe he wandered alone along the banks of the Gallatin and watched
 pair of beavers swimming about in still bend in the river; the black spot
 was much larger, the wake far more
 imposing, and all the accessories
 seemed much the same; but it failed
 utterly to bring back the keenly thrill ing sensations that filled the boy:
 breast on the banks of that old canal
 Perhaps it was because the black dot
 with the complicated pedigree was ab
 sent. Perhaps the change was in thu boy himself. Who can tell?-Fores
 and Stream.