82 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



a few days but what we either caught some fur or killed a deer, 

 though sometimes we would have a bad streak of luck by wound- 

 ing a deer, or having some animal take a foot off and escape, but 

 this would make us all the more eager to follow the trail or 

 trap line. 



As we had gotten by this time several deer and had caught 

 three bear (one in one of the deadfalls that I had built the fall 

 before, that Will Howard called that "dashed dinged ri^in'," when 

 he found the bear in it) we wanted to get them out to Kane, that 

 being the nearest point to a railroad. We started early one morn- 

 ing, Bill taking an axe and I carrying the saw, so that if we found 

 any large trees across the trail that we had cut out the year be- 

 fore we would have the saw to do it with. 



After carrying the saw some distance and not finding any 

 trees of much size across the road, we left it and only took the 

 axe. We found but very little in the trail to cut out. 



We got to Kane in time to engage a man with team to come 

 to camp the next day and take out the venison and bear and 

 bring in some necessary commissaries that we were getting short 

 of. It was only a few days after this that I found that a bear 

 got in one of the traps. The trap chain having a swivel that was 

 pretty well worn, broke, and the bear went off with the trap. I 

 followed the trail until the middle of the afternoon, when I be- 

 came satisfied that Bruin was disgusted with that locality, as he 

 had continued his course nearly due east without a stop. I could 

 see no signs that led me to think that Bruin intended to stop for 

 the next fifty miles. - 



So I gave up the chase and went to camp, getting there long 

 after all good boys should have been in bed. Bill was up and 

 out at the door listening if he could hear a gun shot or anything 

 to indicate what had become of me. We held a council of war 

 before going to bed, and decided to give Bruin another day's rest 

 or travel, as he saw fit to do, before we started on the trail. We 

 would go to all the traps that had not been tended to in the past 

 three or four days and then take up the trail of Bruin and follow 

 him to the end of his trail, no matter how long the trail might be. 



There was but little danger of the trail becoming snowed 



