A DAY OF LUCK. 309 



trail was of some animal that was having a hard time to keep on 

 its feet. You can imagine my joy and surprise to get two deer so 

 unexpectedly. I had only a few rods to go when I found a good 

 big doe dead. 



Well, you may guess that I lost no time in getting the entrails 

 out of these two deer and swinging them up as I had the other 

 two ' for it was getting well past noon. I would be a good five 

 miles from camp when I got to my first marten trap. 



After I got to the top of the divide, I made the best time 

 that was in me. I looked at several fox and marten traps 

 but none had been disturbed. When I got to the first bear trap 

 on the divide I had an occasion to scold and scold hard, but all 

 to no purpose. I found the limb of *a tree jammed in between the 

 jaws of the trap. Of course, I thought some hunter had done me 

 the favor and having as hard a stunt ahead of me, you can guess 

 that the trick was not pleasing to me. Well, here I learned how 

 foolish it was to fly off the handle before you know what has 

 been doing. Now, after a little investigation, I found that, the 

 limb had been broken from the tree by the wind and it so hap- 

 pened that it fell right onto the pan of the trap and sprang it. 

 Setting the trap, I hurried on to the next bear trap and here I 

 had another chance to be disgusted, even more than in the first 

 case. This time it was a porcupine in the trap but there was 

 nothing to be done, only reset the trap and hurry on again. None 

 of the other traps were disturbed, neither the small traps nor the 

 bear trap until I came to the last marten trap which had a marten 

 in it. It was now too dark to see to skin it so I was obliged to 

 dump the carcass into the knapsack and tote it along with the 

 coons and mink pelts. 



I had about one mile to go to reach the road, then four miles 

 to camp and I often thought what a hunter and a trapper would 

 endure and call it sport. It must have been nearly nine o'clock 

 when I got to camp, where I still found the hunting party. They 

 had taken a part of their outfit to their camp grounds and had 

 worked on their camp until nearly night when they returned to 

 my camp to stay for the night and get the balance of their outfit. 



