2O FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



We did not know this when we left home and two of the boys 

 soon got discouraged and returned. 



It was while hunting here that I had another trip of twenty 

 miles through the woods over rough corduroy tote road in the 

 night after a team to take my companion (Vanater by name) out 

 to Alpena to have a broken leg set. He was carrying a deer on 

 his shoulder and when near camp it was necessary to cross a small 

 stream to get to the cabin. We had felled a small tree across the 

 creek for the purpose of crossing. There was three or four 

 inches of snow on the log and after my companion was across 

 the creek and just as he was about to step from the log he slipped 

 and fell, striking his leg across the log in some manner so that 

 it broke between the knee and ankle. 



After getting my companion to camp and making him as com- 

 fortable as possible, I took a lunch in my knapsack and with an 

 old tin lantern with a tallow candle in it, which gave about as 

 much light as a lightning bug, I started over the longest and 

 roughest twenty miles of road that I ever traveled in the night. 

 Sometimes I would trip on some stick or log and fall and put 

 out my light but I would get up, light the candle in the lantern 

 again and hurry on all the faster to make wp for lost time. I 

 made the journey all right and was back to camp the next day 

 before noon where we found my companion doing as well as 

 could be expected under the circumstances. 



We got my companion out to Alpena where the doctor set 

 the leg and in the course of two or three weeks he was so far 

 recovered that he was able to return to camp and keep me com- 

 pany until he was able to again take up the trap line and trail. 



Some years later I again went back to Michigan and hunted 

 deer and trapped on the Manistee, Boardman and Rapid Rivers, 

 but I found game and furs had become somewhat scarce in that 

 part so I next went with a partner to upper Michigan. At that 

 time there was no railroad in Upper Michigan and but few set- 

 tlers, after leaving the Straits, until near Lake Superior and near 

 the copper and iron mines. 



I have tried my luck in three of the states west of the Rocky 

 Mountains. In the Clear Water regions of Idaho there was a 



