A HUNT ON THE KINZUA. 75 



split out of a basswood log and stretched the otter skin, and put 

 in the balance of the day in chopping wood. One of the boys 

 killed three deer that day. I do not remember which one it was. 



The next day I made the rounds of nearly all the traps and 

 got what I have many a time before nothing. I put in three or 

 four days still hunting and had the luck to kill a deer or two, but 

 Charley and Will killed more than I did. I remember, during this 

 time, they were all the time joking me because they were getting 

 more deer than I did. I claimed that they had the best grounds 

 to hunt on, they hunting east of the camp and up nearer the head 

 of the stream, while I hunted west of the camp. 



We would see bear tracks nearly every day, and Will and 

 Charley would try to get around in their hunting course so as to 

 look at the two bear traps, the traps being in the direction in 

 which they hunted. They found the traps undisturbed. I had 

 about made up my mind that I would get no more bear that trip. 

 I was getting a marten, mink or coon now and then, so that I 

 kept a stiff upper lip if the boys did kill a few deer more than 

 I did. Finally one night when I came to camp I found the carcass 

 of a bear, skin and all lying at the shanty door. I thought it was 

 one that either Charley or Will had killed. I found that the boys 

 by chance had met near one of the bear traps, and going to the 

 trap found the bear. As it was a small one they took it out, set 

 the trap and brought the bear to camp. 



It was now getting along in December and the snow was get- 

 ting rather deep and the weather was pretty cold and the game 

 did not move about very much. We all seemed to get a little lazy, 

 and did not get out till after noon. In fact, some days, if the 

 weather was pretty sharp, we did not go out at all but would 

 stay in camp and talk of the hunt and tell where we thought we 

 could find a bunch of deer over in this basin or on that ridge. 



The most of the deadfalls set I had not covered so to keep 

 the snow off. A good many of them had snowed under, so I 

 did not care how soon we broke camp and went home. Deer 

 were quite plentiful, and we could find them nearly every day, 

 when we would get a move on, so we continued to stay day after 

 day, and putting in about one-half the time hunting and the other 



