IO6 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



section than usual this season, although they did not work north 

 into the beech timber until about the first of November, owing to a 

 heavy crop of chestnuts and acorns farther south. 



Comrades of the trap line, if I was in a section of country 

 where large game was as plentiful as it was here fifty years ago, 

 I would not be able to get very far into tall timber, but as it gets 

 monotonous to write of skunk, muskrat and rabbit hunting of to- 

 day, I will tell of some of my experiences of fifty years ago, when 

 it was my custom to hunt deer and bear for profit and pleasure. 

 In those days I made it a point to be in the woods with my bear 

 traps and rifle by the middle of October each year, if health per- 

 mitted. 



In those days all that a trapper and hunter had to do was to 

 get a few miles out into tall timber, build a good log cabin and 

 hit a permanent job for the season. Deer, bear and fur-bearing 

 animals were so plentiful that it only required a small territory to 

 find game sufficiently plenty to keep the trapper on a lively gait 

 all the time. In those days we made it more a specialty of hunt- 

 ing deer for the profit there was in it. We had built our cabin 

 on the divide between the headwaters of the Cross fork of Kettel 

 Creek and the headwaters of the East Fork of the Sinnamahoning. 

 I had built a few deadfalls and bear pens for bear and also had 

 three or four steel bear traps set, but beech-nuts, chestnuts and 

 other nuts were so plentiful that the bear would not take meat 

 bait and I had no other bait at hand. The bear would pass within 

 a few feet of a trap and pay no attention to the bait. 



Now at this time, furs were so low that there was but little 

 to be made from the sale of the pelts of the fox, mink, skunk, etc. 

 But it was my custom to carry one or two steel traps in my pack 

 sack and when I killed a deer, I would make a set or two for the 

 fox, marten or fisher, whichever happened along first. As I have 

 stated I spent the greater part of my time in deer hunting. On 

 this particular day I was following a drove of four or five deer, 

 but the wind was so unsteady and whirling about, in puffs so that 

 as near as I could get to a deer was to see his white flag, beckon- 

 ing me to come on as they jumped a log or some other object. 

 Striking the trail of a bear that had gone back and forth several 



