A Fall Fur Hunt in Maine 
V — Sleeping Out in Wet Clothing—The Partners 
Break Camp—The Start for the Settlements 
By MANLY HARDY 
5. Rose before day; found the stream 
frozen across so that we had to walk around 
Round Pond and Daggett Pond and clear 
up to Shallow Lake. We got another lynx at 
Richardson’s old camp.” Both the lynx taken 
here were very large and both were taken in the 
same trap. I consider the lynx one of the mean¬ 
est animals I know. Unlike a wildcat, which 
they greatly resemble in appearance, but which 
have some fight in them and are as hard to kill 
as house cats, no Canada lynx which I have 
ever yet seen has shown any courage, and they 
are as easily killed as rabbits. 
“We took up all our steel traps, including one 
bear trap, and sprung all our wooden ones, as 
it would be impossible to look at them again 
and we had got about all the game. Long be¬ 
fore we reached our canoe it began to snow 
about as fast as I ever saw it snow. Standing 
in the bow with a maple pole as large as a man s 
wrist and eight feet long, I broke ice while 
Rufus shoved the canoe along. In some places 
the ice was so strong that we hauled the canoe 
over it, and in other places where the stream 
had some current the water was thick with ice 
and snow, making a sludge six inches deep. We 
worked like dogs, taking only a few minutes to 
eat, until it began to grow dark, and we only got 
two miles of the three between Round Pond and 
Caucomgomoc. The snow by this time was six 
inches deep in the canoe and when we came to 
ice that we could not break, the canoe would 
stick so in the wet snow that we could not haul 
her. We were forced to land in a thick cedar 
swamp and try to camp. 
“Every tree and bush was loaded with wet 
snow and it was snowing very fast. We put 
down two forks with a ridge pole and a few 
.slanting poles and spread our A tent upon it in 
Baker tent fashion so as to reflect the heat if 
we could get any. Then we cut dry cedar and 
green ash, all the wood we could get. We cut 
some fir trees and got a lot of wet boughs for 
a bed and laid my poncho over them and at 
last we got a fire going. Every rag on us was 
soaked and the chance for drying off in a tough 
snow storm was not great, but we got some hot 
chocolate, and with a single blanket apiece, laid 
down to get what rest we could. 
“It cleared off with a cold rain, making a stiff 
crust which would nearly but not quite bear us. 
As there was no possibility of going any further 
in the canoe, just as soon as we could see we 
broke the canoe across the stream and turned 
her up for the Winter. Then making up our 
packs, which were quite heavy, we started to 
tramp some twelve or fourteen miles. A cold 
rain set in, and as our packs became soaked, 
they grew heavier. The crust cut our shins 
until the rain softened it. Except a short noon 
halt we traveled from daylight to about an hour 
before dark, being able to average not much 
over a mile and a half an hour. We reached 
'home benumbed by cold.” 
On the way we took out half of a large mink, 
the rest having been eaten by mice. Some days 
before half of a large beaver, which I had laid 
on the lake shore near our landing, had been 
removed. It puzzled me a good deal, as I could 
find not a trace of it nor any trail where it had 
been dragged. At last one day I saw a bluejay 
acting as if he knew something which he wished 
to keep to himself. I got behind a tree and 
after he had made sure that I was out of the 
way I saw him scale down to the shore, and 
alight in a bunch of alders which hung out 
over the lake close to the water, seeming to be 
busy over something. Now whenever you see 
a bluejay or a Canada jay stay quiet in one place 
for any length of time, you may be sure that he 
is in mischief. So I stepped out. The instant 
he saw me he had urgent business down the 
lake. I investigated and found my beaver 
tucked away under this bunch of alders. The 
bluejay had found it and was visiting it to feed. 
Although this part of the beaver could not have 
weighed less than fifteen pounds, I felt sure 
from its being in the water that a mink had 
rolled it in and towed it under the brush for 
his winter’s supplies, so I set a steel trap for 
him. 
This was some fifty yards from our camp, but 
our weasel must have seen me go with the trap 
and bait from our camp, as I had hardly begun 
to set the trap behind a large spruce before the 
weasel came. When I was on my knees fixing 
the trap he would look me in the eyes not two 
feet from my face. As I knew he would be at 
the bait as soon as I left I purposely set it too 
hard for him to spring, for I would not have 
caught him for the price of several mink. 
“I had not told Rufus that I had any trap set, 
so, as it would be some time before the camp 
got warmed up, I now went to look this trap 
rather than get chilly by standing around. I 
found a very dark mink alive in it. Killing him 
I tucked him into the breast of my hunting frock 
and was back at the camp before Rufus had 
noticed my absence. It took a good deal to sur¬ 
prise Rufus, but I have rarely seen anyone so 
surprised as he was when, as he turned round, 
I shoved the mink’s head out of my breast. It 
did seem good to get dry and have a nice, warm 
supper after two days of being only half fed. 
“Nov. 6, Sunday. Cold as Greenland. Icicles 
several feet long hang all along the west side 
of the camp. Rufus washed a shirt and it froze 
as stiff as a dry horse hide as soon as he got it 
out of the camp. We are glad of a day of rest. 
Rufus has snow T shoes, but as I carried them last 
fall and did not use them, I did not bring any 
this year, but as it now looks and as I shall 
have to travel a good many miles to get to any 
settlement, we both think it risky for me to stay 
much longer. 
“Nov. 7. Rose before day and after break¬ 
fast went as far as my Indian line with Rufus 
to help him carry his things. He shot a par¬ 
tridge while I was with him, as I did not carry 
my rifle. I looked at my line, but the sable are 
mostly caught up. Lake frozen clear across and 
a mile or more down it, and as it freezes the 
steam rises in clouds from the open part. I 
took Rufus’ skates and skated across. Cut camp 
wood and chored round till dark. 
“Nov. 8. Not having anything to tell the time 
by I do not know when I got up, but I ate 
breakfast and then waited round several hours 
before I could see to travel. As soon as I could 
see a “spot” I started to look our west line. 
When only a short distance from the camp I 
saw the track of a partridge in the little dust 
of. snow which lay on the crust. I left the line 
and followed him up the hill back of the camp. 
I got sight of him still climbing up where it was 
very steep, and standing where I was when I 
first saw him, I cut his neck off and hung him 
up in a tree to take on my return. The snow 
was quite deep and the crust very sharp. I had 
looked all the traps except one and had not 
found a thing in them. The last was a long 
way up a steep hillside. I was tired by climb¬ 
ing, and it hardly seemed worth while to climb 
to that one when forty-nine had been empty, but 
I climbed up to it and found a sable in it. In 
the morning I had put on a nearly new pair of 
moose-hide moccasins, and before night the crust 
had rasped large holes in both. 
“Rufus came just at dark with a fisher, a 
sable, a mink and three partridges. When we 
were building the home end of the Baker Lake 
line, I had proposed to make a trap for fisher 
