HUNTING AND TRAPPING IN CAMERON Co., PA. 137 



and had you seen the dog-on nondescript that I did, you would 

 have laughed your boots up." I asked if he had seen the man 

 dressed in red, white and black. Bill asked, "Did you see it too?" 

 I told him of the hunter that I had met and talked with. Bill 

 said that he had not been close enough to speak to it, and he was 

 dog-on if he knew whether it was safe to get too close to the 

 dog-on thing or not. 



We had good tracking snow from this time on during the re- 

 mainder of the hunting season. We now each hunted by himself, 

 working as usual over the ground that would bring us in the 

 locality of our traps, which we would look after and relieve any fur 

 bearers that we chanced to get. 



We met with one mishap during the season Well along toward 

 December I went to one of the bear traps that we had not been to 

 in a number of days. The trap was a blacksmith made one with 

 high jaws. I found the trap a short distance from where it had 

 been set, tangled in an old tree top with a bear's foot in it. The 

 bear had been caught just above the foot. As the trap jaws closed 

 tight together the trap clog had got fast solid in the brush soon 

 after the bear had been caught. The animal twisted and pulled until 

 he had unjointed the foot, worn and twisted off the skin and 

 cords of the leg and was gone. He had escaped some time during 

 the night before I came to the trap. 



I reset the trap and then took the trail of the bear, which had 

 taken a northeasterly course. I followed the trail until nearly night, 

 when I became satisfied that he was making for a large windfall 

 on a stream known as the South Fork, some fifteen miles away. 

 I gave up the trail and returned to camp, which I reached about 

 10 o'clock at night. Bill was still keeping supper warm for me 

 well knowing that something was out of the ordinary and wondering 

 what it was. 



The next morning we held a council and concluded to look 

 after a few traps near camp and put in a day of partial rest and 

 prepare to take the bear's trail early the next morning. As planned 

 the next morning, we had our blankets and a grub stake strapped 

 to our backs and were off for the trail some time before daylight. 

 Striking the bear's trail where I had left it about 9 o'clock in the 



