EXPERIENCES OF A TRAPPER AND HUNTER 
FROM YOUTH TO OLD AGE 
By T. ALEXANDER 
CHAPTER XV. 
Everything: was quiet and so different staying at home that I 
could not content myself so 1 decided to scout around a little and look 
for game. I bid them all farewell. Such a parting was hard but it had 
to come. 
I left the train at Winona, Mississippi, near Big Black River, 
where I purchased a boat and traveled down stream for fifty miles 
or more until I arrived at West Station. There I had my boat shifted 
to Canton and went down Perrel River to Jackson, the capital of the 
state. From there to Brookhaven and on down the Baguechitto River 
into Louisianna where I had my boat tramped to the Amit River and 
scouted that for several miles. 1 found the beaver fairly good in places 
—really better at that time than in Arkansas. 
I had left my outfit in care of George Robinson in Arkansas so 
T wrote George what I had found and asked him to come to Mississippi 
and bring the outfit, or if he wouldn’t come to ship the outfit to 
Winona. I received a reply saying he had shipped, my outfit but could 
not come himself as he intended to get married, which was a plausible 
excuse. 
.My outfit arrived 0. K. and I hauled it out to Big Black, the 
stream I decided to trap first. Its swamps were only about two miles 
wide and the farmers lived near the edge at the foot of the hills. This 
made a very desirable stream to trap on as I could board with the 
farmers and when I caught all the game near I could leave my furs 
with them and change boarding places at will. I had trapped about 
40 miles of Big Black by spring and when the season was over I hired 
a farmer with two saddle horses and two pack horses and gathered 
up my furs. 
This plan I successfully kept up for several years, trapping single 
handed and boarding with farmers, until the beavers became so scarce 
I had to quit making them a specialty and trap for more otter, wolves, 
mink and coon. During the time I was trapping in Mississippi and 
Northern Louisiana, my father had made a bad deal on the old Ten¬ 
nessee home and lost everything he had, which was pretty bad for 
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