2IO FIFTY YEARS A HUNTER AND TRAPPER. 



edge of the farm owned by a man by the name of Foster, at the 

 extreme head of the run. 



As it was too late in the day to do any more with the old 

 doe, we concluded to go to Mr. Foster's and stay over night, 

 and take the trail early in the morning. It was snowing a little and 

 we thought that the thicket would be an easy place to find our 

 game, should it snow enough to cover the tracks. In the morning 

 when we got up, we found six or eight inches of snow on the 

 ground, that had fallen during the night. We had an early break- 

 fast, and started out to again play the game with the broken 

 legged doe. 



Before we got to the edge of the woods, we struck the trail 

 of some animal, that had gone across the field in the early part 

 of the night before it had snowed much. We were not positive what 

 sort of an animal it was, whether man or beast. The trail was 

 leading straight across the field without^ a curve in it, and was 

 making straight to a laurel patch that was one and a half miles 

 away on the Taggart farm, less than a mile below Coudersport. 



Mr. Dingman said that it was a bear. I admitted that it was a 

 bear all right, but replied that I would say it was making for 

 the Adirondack Mountains in New York, rather than the laurel 

 patch on the Taggert farm. We did not have far to go to make 

 sure, and a good part of the distance was across farms, so we 

 concluded to hunt bear a while, and give the old doe a rest for 

 a short time. As Mr. Dingman said, the bear made straight for 

 the laurel patch. 



There was not more than 15 or 20 acres in the patch, so we 

 thought that we would circle it and make sure that the bear was 

 still in the laurel. We found that the bear .was there all right, so 

 Mr. Dingman selected a place where he thought the bear would 

 come out when he was routed from his nest, while I was to 

 follow the trail a"nd drive out the bear. I followed until near 

 the center of the patch, when I came onto a small open place 

 forty or fifty feet square. This open space was covered with a 

 heavy growth of wild grass which partly held the snow from getting 

 close to the ground, and I could see the trail of the bear through 

 this grass and loose snow very plain until nearly the opposite side 



