158 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



large as a dry goods box". As soon as the bear was dead, Mr. 

 Jacobs wanted to know if I would sell the bear. When I told 

 him that I expected to sell it, he asked what it was worth. I 

 told him that I thought the hide and meat would bring thirty 

 or thirty-five dollars. He drew out his purse and said, "I will 

 take it." I told him that if he wanted the bear, that we would 

 call it twenty-five dollars, as he should have something for his 

 part in the game. He declared that the hunt had been worth a 

 hundred dollars to him. 



We made a sort of a litter or drag rack with which we 

 managed to haul the bear down the hill to an old lumber road 

 where it could be reached with a team. 



Not long after this I received a copy of the Williamsport Sun 

 containing the report of a monstrous bear captured by Mr. Jacobs 

 in the wilds of Cameron County. It was a bear story equal to the 

 cne the prophet relates when the children called him Baldy. 



When I got to camp I found Bill stretching a couple of mink 

 skins. He had also got a fox or two, and said that a bear had 

 been in one of the bear traps, but had escaped, leaving two toes 

 in the trap. Bill was considerably down at the heel over the escape 

 of the bear, and said that if he had attended to the trap the day 

 before, that the bear was then in the trap ; that he had put up a 

 hard fight before he had made his escape. 



When Bill called for my report I took out a marten skin 

 and the money that I got for the bear and layed them on the table 

 and told Bill there was my count. Bill said that I got the marten 

 from one of the deadfalls, but he was dog-on sorry if he could' tell 

 where I caught the money. When I told him about Mr. Jacobs 

 and the capture of the bear, Bill said he would have given a 

 summer's work to have been there and seen the man sweat. 



I said that I would relate how it happened that I got even with 

 Bill for the bear that he killed on my watching grounds. 



Well, after we had gone the rounds of the traps, we again 

 put in our time still-hunting. Bill had gone south of camp, while 

 I went east. I had traveled until the middle of the afternoon with- 

 out having any luck or seeing any deer. So I shifted my course 

 to the west and worked my way in the direction of a "burn-down" 



