160 FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



same bear that had escaped from Bill's trap some time before, 

 although it was eight or ten miles from where the trap was that 

 had held Bruin's toes. 



A day or two after the heavy fall of snow we got a letter 

 from a man by the name of Comstock, living at Pittsburgh, Penn- 

 sylvania, asking the privilege to come and camp with us and hunt 

 deer until the season closed, the first of January. He stated that 

 he had never killed a deer, and that he was very anxious to kill one. 

 We wrote him to come on, and that one of us would be at Em- 

 porium on the following Friday to guide him to our camp. Friday 

 morning 1 went to Emporium and found Mr. Comstock there as 

 agreed. He had paraphernalia enough to equip a fair-sized army, 

 so we hired a team to take the outfit to camp and also bring out 

 the saddles of a bear and what venison we had on hand. 



For three or four days Mr. Comstock hunted all by himself 

 but had no luck in the way of killing deer, as he said it took 

 more time to hunt the shanty than he had to hunt deer, and sug- 

 gested that we all hunt in company. We had now been on the 

 ground long enough so that we had learned all the runways. Bill 

 said that if I would take Mr. Comstock down to a certain runway, 

 which he had given the name of Fork Point, and place him on it, 

 he would drive the ridge and see if he could not drive a deer to 

 Mr. Comstock. 



Bill started a bunch of five deer and succeeded in getting a 

 shot and breaking a foreleg of a large doe. As the doe with the 

 broken leg soon dropped out from the other deer, he was sure that 

 the deer had start enough so that they would come through to 

 where Comstock and I were watching, he decided to take the trail 

 of the broken legged doe, and as good luck, the deer did come 

 through to Mr. Comstock, and as he had an Osgood gun with four 

 shots, he succeeded in killing a very large buck. After firing the 

 four shots, the fun began. 



Mr. Comstock was determined to take the buck to camp, as he 

 wanted to take the deer home whole. We had a very steep point 

 to climb for a distance of five hundred yards to reach the top of 

 the ridge. The deer weighed about two hundred pounds. Any 

 hunter will tell you what an awkward job it is to carry a deer of 



