Il6 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



frightened Dan was finally located in the top of a small beech 

 tree and came tumbling down inquiring if the bear was "sure dead." 



I have often thought I would like to relate some of my ex- 

 periences in the woods while deer hunting. Many a time while 

 following a herd of deer or a wounded one over ridge after ridge, 

 has the sun set and the stars come out and I found myself many 

 miles from my cabin or any habitation. Then I would find a large 

 fallen tree, that laid close to the ground, gather a pile of dry limbs 

 and bark, scrape away the snow from the log, often the snow be- 

 ing a foot deep, build a fire where I scraped the snow away. 

 When the ground became thoroughly warm, I would rake the 

 coals and brands down against the log, put on more wood, and 

 then I would place hemlock boughs on the ground, where I had 

 previously had the fire. Soon they would begin to steam and after 

 frizzling some venison (if I chanced to have it) before the fire I 

 would take off my coat, lie down on my stomach, pull the coat 

 over my head and shoulders and sleep for hours before waking. 

 Sometimes I would have the skin of a bear to put over me, and 

 for doing these things my friends would scold me, but the reader 

 will know, if he has the blood of a hunter in him, that I enjoyed it. 



But this is not what I started to write about, it was of a day's 

 hunt after a bear on the 16th day of December, 1903. On the 

 day previous, the afternoon sun. sinking to rest in the west, casts 

 its rays for a moment upon a solitary hunter's cabin in the hills 

 of old Potter, then the bright glows faded away, the sun disap- 

 peared behind the mountains and it was a soft beautiful twilight, 

 while I stood just outside the cabin door meditating. Mart (that 

 is an old liner who had come to my cabin to have a few days' 

 hunt) came out of the cabin and I said, "old man, what are you 

 thinking about?" The reply was, "just watching the sun set." 

 "Don't you think the coon will be out tonight if it holds warm?" 

 "I don't know what the coon will do, but I know we went around 

 a bear over in that jam in Dead Man's Hollow. (This hollow is 

 so called because a fisherman a few years ago, found the body of 

 a man who had gotten lost and died in the snow the winter before). 



