74 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



In the morning the boys went to the trap with me and helped 

 get the bear out of the trap and helped set the trap again, and 

 then went on with their deer hunting. I went to skinning the bear, 

 and it was all I did that day to skin that bear and stretch the 

 skin on the shanty. I told the boys when they came in that night 

 that I thought we were going to have a hard winter, and so I 

 concluded to weatherboard the camp with bear skins. The carcass 

 of the bear was, of course, a complete loss, and that is a serious 

 objection to the deadfall as a bear trap. 



I think that it was about this time that Will met with an 

 accident in his foot gear, so he went out to Kane after a pair 

 of gum shoes. At this time we had several deer so thought it 

 best to have the team come in and take them out and ship them. 



When Will came back that evening he said that some kind of 

 an animal had crossed the. path about one-half mile from camp, 

 dragging something. He said that he could not make up his mind 

 what it was, but thought it was some kind of an animal in a trap, 

 but we knew of no one trapping in that locality. 



I did not know but it might be possible that some animal had 

 gotten in one of my otter traps and had broken the chain and 

 gone off with the trap. Early in the morning I went down the 

 creek to look at the traps and see if they were all right. When 

 I came to the Spring Run I saw that my otter (or at least I called 

 it my otter), had again gone up the run, on his usual round of 

 travel. When I came to where the trap was it wasn't there at all. 



I had fastened the trap to a root that was two or three inches 

 under water and a root that I supposed sound. I was mistaken, 

 for the root was pretty doty and the otter had broken the root 

 and gone with my trap. I lost no time in taking up the chase. 

 The trail led up this run to its source, then over a spur of ridge 

 and down the hill again into a branch of the main stream, then 

 up this branch for a distance of a mile or more, where I came 

 up with him. 



He had gone under the roots of a large hemlock tree, and it 

 took me two or three hours to get him out with nothing to work 

 with only my belt axe and a sharpened stake. It was nearly night 

 when I got to camp. I made a stretching board from a spault I 



