Uncle Silas on the Saranac. 
BY W. D. BOYNTON. 
“Boys,” said Uncle Silas, during one of 
our evening visits at his hospitable freside, 
“did [ ever tell ye ’bout my winter’s trap- 
jpin on the Saranac River? No, 1 reckon 
likely I never did. Somehow this kind uv 
a night alius carries me back to them old 
times, an’ just now I was think in’ pertic- 
orlery of that winter when me an’ Ole An¬ 
derson come so near passin’ in our checks. 
Ole was a Norwegion, but there wasn’t 
n better-hearted, or smarter young chap in 
all York State. He was quick as a mink 
an strong as a moose. Talk about shootin’— 
"why I’ve seen Ole drop a deer that was 
^ood eighty rod away, ’cross a little neck 
av the lake, nigh where our shanty stood. 
^ e come up the river from Champlain 
-early in the Fall, an’ got our shanty built 
an’ trappin’ grounds located afore the first 
heavy !• now fell, an’ ’twas lucky enuff we 
did, for I never see sich snow ez we hed 
thet winter. Ef it had only thawed once 
in a while, so’st the snow could a settled, 
9 twouldn’t a bin so bad; but there it was a 
.good five feet deep ©n the level, an’ so 
"‘fluffy that ‘twas hard navigatin' even 
with our snow-shoes. 
But we was prepared for it. We’d 
made the shanty strong and tight, arter 
the regular log cabin fashion, with heavy 
hewed plank door an’ little squar’ holes for 
winders. 
One end uv the shanty was piled full uv 
dry, hard wood thet we’d gathered with a 
•good deal o’ hard labor. You see we meant 
*to be ready for a siege uv any kind. We 
bed smoked venisin a hangin, from the 
xoof, an’ a good store uv meal an’ salt thet 
we'd brought along in our canoe from the 
^settlement. 
All this preparation wasn’t against the 
bard winter weather that alius comes, up 
in them woods. We hed another reason 
for makin’ our shanty strong an puttin’ in 
a good supply of wood an’ provisions. 
’Twa’n’t no uncommon thing in them 
days, for the St. Lawrence Injuns to take 
a sweep clean down through to the foot uv 
the lake. We didn’t much expect to be 
molested, but we knowed that the only 
way was to keep ourselves ready fur a 
siege. 
We hed first rate luck with our trappin’ 
’long the first part uv the winter, afore tha 
snow got so deep, but from that on, ’twas 
purty dull doin’s. How r ever, we felt good 
to think thet we’d got so big a stack uv 
pelts, and could afford to take it kind o’ 
easy fur a while. 
It was a gittin’ on into Febewary, with 
the snow pilin’ up deeper an’ deeper. 
’Twas hard work tendin’ the traps, an’ w« 
wasn’t gittin’ enuff out uv ’em to make it 
pay. 
“Ole,” sez I, one stormy, blustery night, 
as we was a settin’ by the fire, a listenin’ to 
the wind and storm outside, an’ feelin’ 
kind o’ comfortable like, to think that we 
hed a good shelter, “we might jest ez well 
take them traps up, fur there aint agoin’ to 
be any more trappin’ this winter to speak 
of, an’ I, for one, don’t want to resk my 
neck around them gullies an’ slides any 
more than I’m ’bliged to.” 
“Thet’s jest what I’ve been tliinkin’ ‘bout 
fur the last hour, Si; an’ if the storm holds 
up in the mornin’, we’ll go out an’ bring in 
the traps. Ef it keeps on like this ’til morn¬ 
in’, I’m ’fraid the pesky things will all be 
buried up, an’ then we can’t find ’em afore 
spring,” answered Ole, ez he stopped to 
listen to the howlin’ wind and drivin’ snow, 
that was a pilin’ around and over our little 
shanty. 
It hed stopped snowin’ the next mornin’, 
so we started out for the traps. 
Our routes led along together for the 
first half mile, an 1 then Ole turned off to 
toiler up the course of a creek, along which 
we hed traps sot, while my beat lay along 
up the river. 
It was hard, slow work a diggin’ them 
traps out o’ the snow, fur ye couldn’t re¬ 
member jest exactly where each one was 
sot, an’ I hed to dig two or three rod some¬ 
times to find one. 
It was gittin’ purty nigh onto noon I 
thought, when I got to the last trap, so I 
scraped the snow off’en a log and set down 
to eat my lunch afore startin’ back to the 
shanty. 
Jest ez I was a pickin’ things together 
ready fur a fresh start on the home track, 
