134 NARRATIVES. 



the better he learns to get along with few conveniences, and 

 the more desirous he becomes of avoiding luggage." 



" How many traps do you take along ? " 



" When I first went trapping, I thought six or eight traps 

 enough ; but steel-traps are so much better, and more easily 

 tended than wooden traps and dead-falls, that I now take one 

 hundred muskrat or mink traps sometimes even one hun- 

 dred and fifty besides a few otter traps, and, if I am going 

 into a beaver country, a dozen beaver traps." 



" But you can't take all these into the woods at once ? " 



"No; I first select my trapping ground, and then 'make 

 a line,' as trappers say ; i. e., carry into the woods three or 

 four back-loads of traps, and deposit them in safe places along 

 the line on which I intend to trap, which sometimes extends 

 from twenty to forty miles, from one stream to another, or 

 from one lake to another." 



" How many traps can one man tend ? " 



" That depends, of course, upon circumstances. Where 

 game is plenty, fifty traps will keep you skinning and stretch- 

 ing ; but in other places you might tend one hundred and fifty 

 or even two hundred traps." 



" How did you camp at night ? " 



" There is a good deal to be learned about camping out. 

 When I go into the woods to trap for any length of time, I 

 generally build a home-shanty of logs or bark. If I want to 

 build one which will last three or four years, I make it of logs, 

 notching or dovetailing the ends, and laying them up in block- 

 house style, filling the cracks with moss, and making a roof 

 of split cedar or bark. Sometimes I make a shanty by simply 

 driving down two crotched sticks, placing a pole on them, and 

 sticking down poles all around excepting in front, and cover- 

 ing them all over with spruce bark. When near the home- 

 shanty I sleep there of course, but at other times I have no 

 covering excepting a single blanket. I find a big log, and 

 make my bed of boughs on that side of it least exposed to the 

 wind. If the snow is deep, I select my camping-place on the 

 hill-side, digging down to the ground to make a fire, and sleep- 

 ing myself on the snow below, so that the blaze of the fire 



