Good-by, Chickie. Hope you got your grub, and
pretty soon I'll have enough drink to make me feel like I was the
Bass for one night, anyway."
Jimmy hurried to his next trap, which was empty, but the one after
that contained a rat, and there were footprints in the snow.
"That's where the porrage-heart of the Scotchman comes in," said
Jimmy, as he held up the rat by one foot, and gave it a sharp rap
over the head with the trap to make sure it was dead. "Dannie could
no more hear a rat fast in one of me traps and not come over and
put it out of its misery, than he could dance a hornpipe. And him
only sicond hand from hornpipe land, too! But his feet's like lead.
Poor Dannie! He gets just about half the rats I do. He niver did
have luck."
Jimmy's gay face clouded for an instant. The twinkle faded from his
eyes, and a look of unrest swept into them. He muttered something,
and catching up his bag, shoved in the rat. As he reset the trap,
a big crow dropped from branch to branch on a sycamore above him,
and his back scarcely was turned before it alighted on the ice, and
ravenously picked at three drops of blood purpling there.
Away down the ice-sheeted river led Dannie's trail, showing plainly
across the snow blanket. The wind raved through the trees, and
around the curves of the river. The dark earth of the banks peeping
from under overhanging ice and snow, looked like the entrance to
deep mysterious caves. Jimmy's superstitious soul readily peopled
them with goblins and devils.
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