MY FIRST REAL TRAPPING EXPERIENCE. 33 



and killed the fox when I crossed over to see what was in the 

 other trap and to my disgust there was a skunk. I was not par- 

 ticularly in love with skunks in those days, for while they scented 

 just as loud at that time as now they were vastly lacking in the 

 money value. I took hold of the clog and carefully dragged the 

 skunk to the creek and sank him in the water. I now went back 

 to the other side of the creek and set the fox trap and when I 

 had the trap set the skunk was good and dead. I reset the trap 

 and took the fox and skunk to camp without skinning. When I 

 got to camp I found Mr. Harris busy making stretching boards of 

 different sizes for different animals from shakes that we had left 

 when covering the roof. Mr. Harris laughed and said that he 

 knew that we would need them when I got back. ' The fox and 

 skunk were skinned, stretched and hung up on the outside of the 

 gable of the shack, and that was the starting point of our catch 

 of the season. 



We set the most of our small traps along the streams for 

 foxes and mink, taking a few to the ridges to set in likely places 

 to catch a fox, and at thick laurel patches where we were likely 

 to catch a wild cat as there was a bounty of $2 on them. 



After the small steel traps were set we began building a line 

 of deadfalls for marten and fisher. After the deadfalls were built 

 we divided our time between hunting deer and tending the traps. 



We caught three bears, two fisher, which were very scarce, 

 as I do not think that fishers were ever very plentiful in this state, 

 a good bunch of marten, foxes, four or five wildcats and killed 

 twenty-two deer. The last days of December Mr. Harris said that 

 we would prepare to go home as the deer season closed the first 

 of January. Although the law gave until the fifteenth to get your 

 deer we had dragged the most of ours up to the Bailey Mill at 

 various times. We got all those around the mill and sent them to 

 Jersey Shore by freight teams to the railroad, then shipped them 

 to New York. We got 15 cents for saddles and 10 cents for the 

 whole deer. 



Mr. Harris had brought an auger with him so that he could 

 make a sleigh to go home with and from birch saplings we made 

 3 



