MY FIRST REAL TRAPPING EXPERIENCE. 29 



time. After I got my gun the days seemed like weeks and the 

 weeks like months. I was constantly in fear that Mr. Harris 

 would not come. But promptly at the time set, in the evening just 

 before sundown, a man with a one horse wagon loaded with bear 

 traps and other traps of smaller size and with one of the worst 

 old rack-of-bones of a horse that I had ever seen, drove up to 

 father's place, stopped and inquired if Mr. Woodcock lived there. 

 I immediately asked if he was Mr. Harris, as I had already guessed 

 who the man was. He replied that he was and said that he 

 took it that I was the lad who was going with him. 



Mr. Harris said that "often an old horse and a colt" worked 

 well together and that we would make a good team. While we 

 were putting his horses away I asked him what he intended to 

 do with the old horse and he replied that he brought him along 

 so that if we got stuck he could hitch him on and help out. The 

 other horse was a fine horse and I was at a loss to know what 

 Mr. Harris meant. 



During the evening I thought father and Mr. Harris talked 

 on every other subject rather than hunting but I managed to put 

 in a few questions now and again as to what we were to do when 

 we arrived at the great Black Forest. 



Mr. Harris was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a long 

 beard nearly as white as snow. We were up early the next morn- 

 ing and on our way before daylight. Our route was over the 

 road known as the Jersey Shore turnpike but after the first four 

 miles we went through an unbroken wilderness for twenty miles, 

 save only one house, then known as the -Edcomb Place, now called 

 Cherry Springs. The next place, ten miles farther on, was a 

 group of four or five shacks called Carter Camp, but known now 

 as Newbergen. This was in the year 1863 and the conditions over 

 this road are the same today only the large timber has been mostly 

 cut away and there is no one living at Cherry Springs. Five miles 

 farther on we came to Oleana, where there was a hotel and store, 

 owned by Henry Anderson, a Norwegian, who came to this country 

 as the private secretary of Ole Bull, the great violinist, and it was 

 here where the much talked of Ole Bull Castle was built. 



Beg pardon, I guess I am getting off the trap line. We stopped 



