1 6 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



longer and my hunts took me farther into the woods. Finally as 

 game became scarcer my hunts grew from a few hours in length 

 to weeks and months camping in a cabin built in the woods in 

 a section where game was plenty. 



At the age of thirteen while out with a party of men on a 

 hunting and fishing trip, I killed my first bear. While I had now 

 been out each fall with my traps and gun, it was not until I was 

 about eighteen years old that I took my first lesson from an old 

 and experienced trapper, a man nearly eighty years old and a 

 trapper and hunter from boyhood. The man's name was Aleck 

 Harris. We made our camp in the extreme southeastern part of 

 this (Potter) County in a section known as "The Black Forest" 

 and it, was here that I learned many things from an experienced 

 trapper and hunter that served me well on the trap line and the 

 trail, in the years that followed. 



It was here that I made my first bed in a foot or more of 

 snow with a fire against a fallen tree and a few boughs throwr 

 on the ground for a bed. At other times perhaps a bear skin just 

 removed from the bear for covering, or I might have no covering 

 other than to remove my coat and spread it over me. This I 

 have often done when belated on the trail so that I was unable 

 to reach the cabin and was happy and contented. 



It was here I first learned to do up the saddles or the car- 

 cass of a deer in the more convenient way to carry. It was here 

 that I took my first practical lessons in skinning, stretching, curing 

 and handling of skins and furs. I also learned many things of 

 traps and trapping and to do away with sheath knives and other 

 unnecessary burdens on the trap line. In my younger days I 

 preferred to "go it alone" when in a country that I was familiar 

 with and many a week I have spent in my cabin alone save for 

 my faithful dog, but as I grew older and became afflicted with 

 rheumatism I have found a partner more acceptable. 



I have met with many queer circumstances while on the trap 

 line and trail, yet I have never met with any of those blood- 

 curdling and hair-breadth escapes from wild animals which are 

 mostly "pipe dreams". Perhaps the nearest I ever came to being 

 seriously hurt by a wild animal was from a large buck deer. It 



