THIRTY YEARS A HUNTER. 4i* 



against the rapid current, this was more difficult, 

 taking two or two and a half days. Frequently in 

 hunting, the bears and wolves would follow us for 

 the entrails of the deer. Some times after killing a 

 deer, we found it too lean to eat, when we would 

 abandon it to the wolves and foxes, which we could 

 hear howling and barking in our rear, guided by our 

 fires. Occasionally a still more savage panther would 

 rush in and drive these from their repast. When a 

 deer was suitable for food we dressed it at once, and 

 they were thus sure of obtaining the refuse. 



After the first of October, the mode of taking fish 

 was to make an oblique wall in the creek, letting it 

 extend at the upper end about twenty feet, and come 

 together at the lower end so near as only to admit 

 the fish basket, which we made of laths and timber. 

 It being in the center of the stream, the fish would 

 mostly pass down between the walls and enter the 

 basket. We generally built the wall where there 

 was a slight rapid, leaving a fall of about eighteen 

 inches at the basket, into which the fish would pass, 

 and could not escape. The first season that my 

 father constructed a basket, he took pattern by some 

 of his neighbors below us. There came a rise of 

 water about the last of October, and we caught but 

 few fish that year. The next season he determined 

 to put in a basket that would prove effectual whether 

 the water was high or low. He commenced building 

 in June, intending to be in season. He concluded 

 to construct it differently from any he had seen. He 

 made one wall shorter and at a sharper angle with 



