EXPERIENCES OF A TRAPPER AND HUNTER 
FROM YOUTH TO OLD AGE 
By T. ALEXANDER 
CHAPTER VIII. 
I set my first trap line in Arkansas. I am satisfied you readers 
of today can’t draw any idea how plentiful the game was in Arkansas 
45 years ago. There were deer, bear, wolves, panther, beaver, otter, 
lynx, lynx eat, coon, mink, wild turkeys and wild hogs by the thou¬ 
sands. They were so plentiful they made trails as domestic animals 
make today. Anything like a trapper could trap one day and catch all 
the animals he could skin and stretch their pelts each day. A hunter 
and trapper’s paradise was a mild term for Arkansas those days. 
I have seen logs spanning rivers, creeks and bayous that the bears 
have crossed so much that they had worn footprints in the hard timber. 
I have seen deer trails equal to any band of sheep, and beaver dams 
one-half mile in length, varying from one foot to seven feet high, 
where they had dammed the outlet of lakes and small streams. I have 
seen beaver houses ten or fifteen feet in width, five or six feet high 
and they would make trails from lake to lake and from stream to 
stream, as plain as a sled road. 
I have seen where otter made slides up and down the bank of 
lakes and streams for forty or fifty yards, leaving fish scales by the 
bushel. I have seen coon and mink trails as plain as the children’s 
trail to a country school house. Just think of such a hunting ground 
for a boy of my tact and caliber. 
The following day I went to my traps, I had caught four coon 
and one mink and one beaver. This put me to it to skin and stretch. 
I reset my traps. 
Day after day I would catch as many animals as I could skin, such 
as coon and mink, but made no headway on beaver and otter. 
There was a station, Grady, where we went to get our mail once 
a week. As I went to Grady I met several hunters but one trapper, 
and he was getting up in years. His name was Hugh Dennis. Old 
Hugh was red-headed and liked barley-corn too much but was a 
pretty good fellow otherwise. Every time we met he would ask me 
how I was getting along with my trapping. I told him fine, except I 
could not catch beaver as fast as I would like to. Old Hugh said, 
‘<Let me sell you a receipt to make beaver bait; it won’t cost you but 
$10 00 and you will make that back in a short time.” I knew Hugh 
had sold the Selth boys, who were trapping, his receipt and I was 
— 37 — 
