This was placed away in one corner, and Frank promised to mend it immediately.
"See here," said Archie, as he drew out two queer-looking implements; "I have been acting on the suggestion of Uncle Joe Lewis." "What are they ?" inquired Frank.
One of them was a thin rod of steel, about three feet in length, very pointed and sharp at the end the other looked very much like a fish-spear, only the "tines" were smaller and sharper.
"They are spears," said Archie, in answer to Frank's question.
"So I see; but what use can you put them to ?" "This," said Archie, taking up the rod of steel, "is a mink-spear.
Last winter we lost a good many minks, when, if we had had an instrument like this, we could have secured them easily enough.

You know that sometimes you get a mink into a place where you can see him, but, if you go to work to chop a hole large enough to get a stick in to kill him, he will jump out before you know what you are about.

You will remember a little incident of this kind that happened last winter--that day we had such good luck.

We were following a mink up the creek on the ice, when Brave suddenly stopped before a hollow stub, and stuck his nose into a hole, and acted as if there was a mink in there; and, you know, we didn't believe there was, but we thought we could stop and see.

So we cut a hole in the stub, and, sure enough, there was a mink, and, as good luck would have it, we had cut the hole close to the place where he was, and we thought we had him sure; and, while Harry Butler went to cut a stick to kill him with, I chopped the hole a little larger, so that we could see him plainer, when, all of a sudden, out popped the mink, and, before we could say 'scat,' it was under the ice." "Yes," said Frank, "I remember it very well; and, I guess, there were some mad boys around that place, somewhere." "Yes," said Archie, "I was provoked because it was all my fault that we lost him.