64 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



it was a bad case of fever. I waited a few days to see if he 

 would be able to go back to camp and then the doctor told me 

 that he would not be out of bed in two months and advised me to 

 keep out of the woods or I would be brought out on a stretcher. 

 I had my mind on all those deadfalls that we had built and all the 

 coon, mink and fox that we could catch, and was determined to go 

 back to camp notwithstanding our friend's advice to the contrary. 

 After looking around for another partner which I was unable 

 to find as no one wished to go and stay longer than a day or two 

 (what we call summer trappers), I again packed my knapsack and 

 went back to camp. The next morning, after catching a good lot 

 of trout for coon and mink bait, I began the work of setting the 

 hundred or more deadfalls that pard and I had built. As soon as 

 I had all the deadfalls set I hunted up good places to set the traps 

 that we had. I was so busy all the time that there was no chance 

 to get lonesome. Every day there were coon and mink to skin and 

 stretch. Now and then a big, old coon was so strong that he 

 would tear the deadfall to pieces and I would be compelled to build 

 it all over and make it stronger. 



What a difference there is now with the many styles of traps 

 and the H-T-T to guide the young hunter and trapper. If I could 

 have had a couple dozen of the No. 1 Victor traps made as at 

 the present time, I would have been as proud as a small boy with 

 a new pair of boots, although I think what was lacking in modern 

 traps was fully made up by the number of furbearing animals. 



I had been so busy during the two weeks I was in camp that 

 I had forgotten the day of the week ; neither did I take time to 

 kill a deer or to go up to the road to see if anyone had written, 

 to see if I was dead or alive. There was a stage passed over the 

 road twice a week. I had nailed a box with a good tight lid on 

 a tree by the road so that I could send a line out home for any- 

 thing I wanted or my family could write to me. 



I had two or three traps set for foxes up towards the road 

 along the edge of a laurel patch where there were plenty of rab- 

 bits and the foxes worked around to catch rabbits. I thought I 

 would go to the road and be there about the time the stage passed 



