Show FOUGHT UNDER WATER A mint drowsed while hilling a mask rat lu an adirondack pool the muddled water of a half frozen cove down on the flats told that something unusual had happened not long before plainer yet was the tale when a stiffening furred body rose to the sur batee of the little open apace of water under the fringe of nearly frozen ice a dark spot showed plainly to a wood mans eye that a fight had occurred in the water and a closer inspection demonstrated that it had been a fight for food and a fight for life A hungry mink had come that way along a string of coves looking for something to eat the mice were shy ana he could not catch them of fish there were none but a lone muskrat diving for roots and after a minute beneath the waters surface rising again offered a prey at once a fighter and of goodly taste A mink likes to kill a fighter he will go a long way from brooks upon hill and even mountain tops looking for one woodsman woodsmen woods men say he tackles martens or weasels and is especially fond of a big muskrat the mink crouched on the edge of the ice a moment then as the muskrat rose he sprang for his prey the muskrat quickly threw up his head and caught the mink by a paw the mink got hold of alie muskrats neck a skin hold only they rolled and kicked the water high in the air throwing it ten feet away into the snow the mink could have killed the muskrat had they been in the snow or on the ground but in the water the muskrat was too powerful at last they dived and above them the water boiled and grew yellow with mud under water the mink was as badly off as at the surface at last the minks breath gave OM and letting go he tried to rise but the muskrat would not release his hold on the minks leg so at last the mink after much struggling died but hia hold on the muskrats throat though at first only a skin hold had later been forced back and the big vein had been cut the mink rose to the surface and the muskrat tried to swim away but died and ros as the other had done |