June ii, 1910.] 
929 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
fore we got under way it was near dark. As 
it was cold and there was no fire in the cabin, 
which had been stowed full of hay, Wadleigh 
got a saw and began to saw wood, while I found 
a broom and swept up some bushels of chaff 
from the cabin floor. By the time I got the 
cabin neated up, Wadleigh had a good fire going 
in the stove. 
When I went on deck Wadleigh called my 
attention to a fire on the rocks over toward 
Norcross Point. He said: “Some poor fellow' 
is out there in the cold signalling for the boat,” 
and he asked me to try to get the captain to 
run over and take him off. For some cause I 
stood well in the captain’s favor, though the 
only reason I could assign was that once I bad 
relieved him of some Quaker tourists who were 
getting the worth of their passage by asking- 
questions about the scenery. The captain said 
that at this stage of water the shore was too 
rocky for him to go in very near, but that if 
I could get a volunteer crew to man the boat 
he would run in within half a mile. I got Joe 
Barrows, who died in the nth Maine, and John 
Billedeau, who was burned to death a few years 
ago, to man the boat and they brought off Jim 
Lee, a head lumberman. Lee said that seeing 
us at Northeast Carry he supposed that we 
would stay there, and so started for us in a 
big driving batteau. He was running before a 
heavy sea, and when we started for Northwest 
Carry we passed him. He could not turn his 
boat in that sea and was obliged to keep on be¬ 
fore it until he reached the shore. He was wet 
through from the sea and the snow, but after 
several attempts he had managed to get a fire 
started back of the sea wall, succeeding with 
the last match he had, and then with brands 
from this he started the one on the lake shore, 
hoping we might see it and come for him. As 
soon as he got on board he wrapped himself up 
in an old sail and lay down behind the stove to 
try to get warm. 
Although cold, the night was beautiful. The 
snow had ceased and the moon, nearly full, was 
out. I stood on deck a long time admiring the 
nearer mountains, the Lobster Hills, Big and 
Little Spencers and Little Kineo, now all white 
with snow. As we burned wood, the long 
rocket-shaped cinders fell in showers as from a 
miniature volcano. 
We wooded up at Kineo and reached Green¬ 
ville about midnight. At 5 a. m. I was on the 
stage, homeward bound. Three weeks after this 
Rufus came out. He had taken five mink, six 
sable, a fisher, an otter and a lynx from our 
traps, but he said that coming back to the empty 
camp made him so lonesome that after a week 
he moved his things to a lumber camp and 
caught a few mink around the open places and 
two or three sable. He had a very narrow es¬ 
cape the day but one after I left. He started 
to skate from our camp across the lake to look 
our Ross Pond traps. The sun was in his face 
and he did not look up until he crossed over a 
crack in the ice, when looking up he found that 
he was on a triangular piece of ice which was 
detatched from the main ice with open water 
just beyond. He stopped barely in time to save 
himself. 
Rufus said that I was very fortunate in get¬ 
ting out when I did, as only two or three days 
after there came eighteen inches of snow at one 
fall. Two days later, after dark, Old Brassua 
and John came to the camp. John told me the 
story later. The day after they got across the 
nine mile Baker Lake Carry, going in, it froze 
so that they could not use their canoe. They 
had fair success in hunting sable and beaver, 
but got out of provisions, and after living ten 
days on beaver meat without salt, the deep snow 
came. They started to return with their fur, 
ON THE COTTAGE PIAZZA. 
blankets and gun. John broke the way. They 
got only about three miles that day and camped 
in the snow. The next morning they left the 
fur and the gun, taking only the blankets and 
hatchet. That night they again slept in the snow 
and in the morning they abandoned the blankets, 
trying to reach our camp. On reaching Avery 
Pond they took to the ice, as the snow was not 
so deep on the ice. It was after dark and they 
were just abreast of the beaver house where 
A RE we going to start soon,” I called 
from the top of a rock to an apparent¬ 
ly empty boat. A section of the floor 
showed signs of life, heaved upward, took 
shape like the genii, and lo! the Boy, with both 
hands full of tools and one between his teeth! 
“Caw-raw-raw-raw!” he called back, “Maw- 
caw-gaw, taw! Ix!” Thai something was out 
Avery Brook enters the lake about half a mile 
from our camp, when John who was ahead 
broke in and got wet all over. It seems that 
the beaver, which had left after we footed one, 
had returned, and so the ice in front of the 
house was thin. John said: “Our courage very 
small that time.” He said if they had not 
known just where our camp was that they would 
have given up then, as they had been three 
whole days coming only ten miles and had 
neither food nor blankets; but knowing that our 
camp was so near, caused them to persevere. 
1 he next day Rufus lent John his snowshoes 
and he went back to get their things. Then John 
pounded basket stuff from yellow ash and with 
it filled the middles of the old snowshoes I had 
left, and after a three days’ rest, Rufus directed 
them to the nearest lumber camp. 
Our total catch was four bears, three lynx, 
two otter, four fisher, about fifty sable, thirty- 
five mink, seven beavers and seventy-five musk¬ 
rats. Our failure to catch more otter was due 
to our being obliged to set on dead water and 
in all cases the traps were frozen in before the 
otter revisited their slides. At that time sable 
brought only $1.50 and our dark one $2.50, which 
now would bring at least $15. Lynx then 
brought $2.50, now worth $20 to $25; fisher and 
otter, $6, now $15 to $25. Our whole hunt 
brought a little over $250, including the bounty 
on bears of $5 each. At present prices it would 
have brought fully three times as much. Wc 
made the largest hunt made by any two who 
hunted the same length of time that fall. 
There is a certain fascination about trapping 
that there is not about any other kind of hunt¬ 
ing. Although risky and hard work and the 
pay usually small, still many men trap as long 
as they are able to walk. In handling at least 
half a million dollars’ worth of furs, reckoned 
at the old low prices, which as prices are now 
would be worth three times as much, I have 
never known of any trapper accumulating $2,000 
worth of property by trapping alone, although 
I have known a good many farmers to add con- * 
siderably to their incomes by hunting springs 
and falls. As a business it is fully as uncertain 
as prospecting for mining. To show how un¬ 
certain it is, I once paid two half-breeds over 
$300 for what beaver and otter they took in a 
two months’ spring hunt. The next fall the 
same two men hunted hard for six weeks and 
got nothing but one mink, which sold for two 
dollars. 
of order and we might not go at all was mere 
guesswork on my part, but as to “lx,” I had 
no doubts—all too well I knew that ominous 
sound! Never in my life have I encountered 
anything that needed so much fixing as that 
boat. So, resignedly, I turned away. Bob walk¬ 
ing beside me with a mien that would have 
graced the funeral of Julius Cajsar. 
A Boy, a Dog a.nd a. Motor Boat 
By ANNA CARTER DAVIS 
