Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1912. 
VOL. LXX1X.—No. 4. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
Trapping in the Santa Ritas 
F OLKS back ill the land of clover meadows 
and blue-grass pastures would have thought 
the scene before my eyes a wilderness, bar¬ 
ren and forbidding, but to me it was Elysium, 
peopled with the seductive forms of grizzly bears 
and black-tailed deer, and promising a goodly 
measure of pleasure and profit in the wake of 
the .30-40 Winchester lying across my arm. At 
that particular moment I was gazing over miles 
of live oak and juniper covered hills, up Saw¬ 
mill Canon where, fifteen years ago, a bear 
might have been found napping under almost 
any bush or boulder, and which is still a very 
good bear country, as well as the home of moun¬ 
tain lions and a few deer. I had come out for 
a look at my traps and to try for a shot at a 
bear before the last one had stowed himself 
away into winter quarters out of reach. If suc¬ 
cessful at all, I knew it must be soon ere his 
winter drowsiness beat me in the conquest of 
bruin. 
It was early in November, and 1 had just 
settled my camp for a winter’s trapping high in 
the Santa Rita range. Arizona’s mesas and hills 
lay all around, empty save for the countless 
herds, of cattle which here and there added a 
slightly emphasized note of animation to the 
unseen but strongly felt presence of wild life, 
permeating this waste as it does every scene 
of nature in her unmarred state. Material mani¬ 
festations of the unseen wild life of the Santa 
Ritas had been playing havoc with the life of 
the herds; that is, wolves, bears and lions had 
been making free with calves and weaklings, 
and the fact had much to do with my selecting 
the Santa Ritas as a likely trapping ground. I 
may as well state right now, however, that the 
Santa Rita bears were too much for me, or I 
was too slow for them, for I did not get a shot 
at one the winter long. 
Within a radius of six or seven, miles from 
camp I put out some sixty traps in two lines, 
one nearly twenty, the other half as many miles 
long, and with making the rounds of them, skin¬ 
ning their victims, and taking an occasional 
tramp into the hills for deer, I was kept busy. 
My warehouse, in other words, the little tent 
given up to the storage of furs, filled rapidly. 
1 ent walls, rocks and bushes in every shady spot 
in camp were soon covered with pelts stretched 
out to dry, while each visit to- the traps' added 
to the store. No beast of the hills seemed proof 
against the temptation of bait in those No. 4 
traps. Mountain lion, coyote, gray fox, wildcat, 
By M. R. STEVENS 
Photographs by the Author. 
skunk, ’coon, ring-tailed cat, wolf and lynx alike 
came, smelled, tasted and paid the penalty with 
their lives. Even the birds of the air were not 
exempt from the danger, no less than twenty- 
four thieving eagles, some very large, falling 
into durance, as a result of their bait-filching 
efforts during the season. It always brought re¬ 
gret to find the national bird a victim of the 
snare intended for more mischievous prey, for 
the eagles are practically harmless in this region. 
I had no wish to include the birds among the 
marauders of the hills against which I waged 
warfare. 
Yet it was not strange that the bait of those 
traps was tempting to such numbers of wild 
creatures. It often consisted of venison which 
would tempt the human appetite of a New York 
epicure. My most highly coveted game, how¬ 
ever, was mountain lions, and consequently my 
favorite bait for the traps was horse meat, for 
there was nothing the lions liked so well. Other 
animals showed no special preference in the bait 
line. 
Notwithstanding its superiority, horse meat bait 
was not always at hand, and was obtained with 
some difficulty. The source of supply was the 
small bands of wild bronchos, fierce and wary, 
useless and ownerless, roaming the hills with 
the rest of the natural population. They were 
hunted and shot the same as deer, but were 
much harder to approach, being usually out on 
some mesa where it was easy to discover a doe 
at her very first appearance. A shot at short 
range was rare, and at times my .30-40 brought 
one down when the herd was grazing nearly a 
half mile away. 
It is commonly thought necessary to use a 
large caliber gun in hunting large game, and as 
a deer rifle and general weapon nothing sur¬ 
passes a .30-40 Winchester. But in this particu 
GREEN WALLS, FROSTED BORDER, BLUE CEILING. 
