This Can't End Well

My workshop is about 150 feet from the ocean and is a natural refuge for the Norway Rats who frequent the rocks on the beach. They come up periodically looking for an easy handout like our stash of bird seed and/or to poop all over the floor. I employ some countermeasures to this rodent invasion, one of which is a couple of huge peanut butter baited rat traps. These are huge traps, the kind that could easily break a finger if a person were careless when setting it.

Yesterday I was checking the trap line and discovered some rat poop on the workshop floor. This warranted a  closer inspection which showed the trap near the bird seed bucket to be missing altogether. I guess a rat sprung the trap but it did not hit anything vital (like it's neck) but may have caught his tail or maybe a leg. Oh boy! Where is it? Where did it drag the trap off to? I checked under my power saws, work bench and in the wood pile but no luck. I guess it is possible I left the door open for a while and the rat entered, got trapped and left through the door. I prefer this scenario to the one where he is still somewhere in the shop, dead or dying and getting ready to stink and attract flies. Norma wants me to check around the yard but really, I do not want to find it. I set a new trap and this time screwed it to the floor. Maybe the same rat will drag the old trap back and get caught again in the new one. I have lots of peanut butter.