CHAPTER VI. 

 A Hunt on the Kinzua. 



COMRADES, as I have not been able to trap any for the 

 past two years 1905 and 1906 and as I have previously 

 served for more than 50 years almost without cessation, 

 along the trap line, I beg to be admitted to your ranks 

 as one of the "Hasbeens." 



I will therefore tell of one of my trips 'on a hunting and trap- 

 ping expedition in the fall and winter of 1865-6, a party of two 

 besides myself. My two companions' names were Charles Manly 

 and William Howard. We started about the 15th of October for 

 Coudersport with a team of horses and wagon loaded with the 

 greater part of our outfit and went to Emporium, Cameron County, 

 where we hit the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad. The only rail- 

 road that touched Northwestern Pennsylvania at that time. Here 

 we took the railroad to Kane, a town in Southwestern McKean 

 County, where we stopped 6ne day and made purchases for three 

 months' camping. We hired a good team here to take our outfit 

 about seven or eight miles on to Kinzua Creek. 



Almost the entire distance was through the woods and over 

 the rock. There was no sign of a road only as we went ahead of 

 the team and cut a tree or log here and there. The outfit was 

 lashed onto a bobsled, and as we had bargained with the man to 

 make the trip for a stated price, he did not seem to care whether 

 there was any road or not, so that he got through as quickly as 

 possible. 



We reached the stream about noon. The man fed his team 

 some oats, swallowed a few mouthsful himself and was soon on 

 his way back to town, while we began laying plans for our camp. 

 We selected a spot on a little rise of ground near a good spring 

 of water, and where there was plenty of small yellow birch trees 



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