56 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER, 



I had some fine times out with the gun and I always gave Mr. 

 Abbott whatever game I killed. I did not dare to take it home 

 fearing that I would be compelled to explain how I came by the 

 game. One day I had been out after wild pigeons and had got 

 quite a number or more than I liked to give away and go without 

 ourselves. I thought I would resort to one of those white lies 

 that we have all heard tell of. I told my parents that Mr. Abbott 

 gave me the pigeons but the plan did not work, although it was 

 the making of me so far as a gun is concerned. 



When father inquired of Mr. Abbott as to how I got the 

 pigeons it brought out the whole thing as to the gun business and 

 also why the egg basket had not filled up as usual. The result 

 was that father and mother held a council of war and decided that 

 if I was to have a gun the better way was to let me have one of 

 my own. Father told me that I must not borrow a gun any more 

 but take one of our own guns and that he (father) would take 

 the gun to the gunsmith and have the locks changed from a flint 

 lock to a cap lock. 



You may be sure that this was the best news that this kid 

 ever heard. I picked up double the usual stone piles that day and 

 went and got the cows without being told a half dozen times. 



Well, as every hunter and trapper who is born and not made 

 is always looking for taller timber and trying to get farther and 

 farther from the ting-tong of the cow bells, so it was in my case. 

 I had seen some whelp wolves that friends of ours (Harris and 

 Leroy Lyman, who were noted hunters) had got. They had gone 

 onto the waters of the Sinnemahoning and taken five pup wolves 

 not much larger than kittens, from their den. The puppies were 

 brought out alive but they killed the old mother wolf. On their 

 way home they stopped at our house so that we could see the 

 young wolves. 



I heard these hunters tell how they discovered the wolf den; 

 how they had howled in imitation of a wolf to call the old wolves 

 up ; how they had shot the old female and had then taken the 

 young wolves from the den ; heard them tell of the money that the 

 bounty on wolves would bring them (there was $25 bounty on all 

 wolves then, the same as now). All of this made me long for the 



