214: MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



and the smell of the meat said plainly that whatever this 

 thing may be I would starve before I would eat it. It 

 was an odor like that of mink, weasels and other beasts 

 of prey, or rather, those which live on flesh exclusively 

 for the flesh of the bear, coon, hog and other omnivora 

 has no such smell. One hindleg had been broken and 

 the other injured a most fortunate shot in the uncer- 

 tain light, and one of pure and unadulterated luck. 



After a toilet in the brook and a good breakfast 

 such a breakfast as only one with an appetite such as I 

 had, after the morning's work, can appreciate I crossed 

 the divide, and struck the other stream, which led home- 

 ward; yes, that's the word; it was home now. Soon I 

 came to a dead-fall which had been wrecked ; the back of 

 it had been broken into and the bait taken. I thought 

 that some animal had approached it from the rear, and 

 in ignorance that the other side was open and that the 

 trigger held a hospitable log, which would induce him to 

 remain by falling and breaking his back, had considered 

 that the only way to get at the desired bait was to break 

 in from the side he first came to. After finding a dozen 

 or more dead-falls entered in the same manner I began 

 thinking. The more I thought of the matter the further 

 I was from any conclusion. The crust on the snow was 

 now too hard to show any tracks except of deer, whose 

 small hoofs cut through it and often left bloody marks 

 where the crust had retaliated. 



When I reached camp, Antoine had just finished his 

 laundry work and was hanging it up. Here I want to 

 tell the young boys that a trapper's life is a hard one, 

 aside from the exposure in running lines of traps. With 

 two it is lighter because of a division of labor, but to run 

 a line two or three days, skin, stretch and then flesh the 

 skins so that particles of fat do not injure them, cook for 



