Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper Part 17

You should not fail to remove all the fat and flesh from the skin immediately after the skin is on the board. If a skin is quite wet when taken from the animal it should be drawn lightly on the board until the fur is quite dry. Then turn the skin flesh side out and stretch.

It is always best if you can go into the country where you intend to trap. This is especially important if the ground is a new field to you. During the summer or early fall, acquaint yourself with the streams and the general surroundings, and prepare some of your best sets for the mink and the fox.

If you have a dog of good intelligence take him along, though he may not be broken to the business of trapping. It is many a fox and c.o.o.n that my dog has saved for me when they have escaped from footing or a broken chain. If the dog is of much intelligence, and you use care in training him, you will soon find that a dog will learn more about trapping than you supposed possible. If you have long lines of traps your dog will inform you more than once that you have pa.s.sed a trap that chanced to be a little off the main line.

Brother bear trappers, how do you like this style of bear trap (see frontispiece) for toting through the woods three or four miles from camp and at the same time tote a couple of sheep heads or the head of a beef for bait? In times gone by I have carried two or three Newhouse bear traps and bait to bait them with from one to five miles in the woods to pinch old Bruin's toes. Such is a pleasure to any red blooded man, who was born a real lover of the open and the stimulating effect of obtaining that $30 or $40, which the hide and meat of the bear brought, had on the trapper, was nearly equal to the desire to be out in the tall timber.

Now brother bear trappers, these traps that you see on my shoulder are of my own make and are made with a half circle bed piece instead of a straight bed piece, as the ordinary trap is made. I wish to call your attention to how this trap fits the shoulders and how much easier it is to carry than the trap with the straight bed piece and note how much more readily you can get your gun into shape for action. Many a deer has given me the slip before I could drop the bear traps and get my gun ready for action when I have been toting bear traps in the woods. But with this style of trap your gun can be put in operation at once, regardless of the traps.

Boys, another thing that I have learned in the last five years'

experience in trapping in the south, (this was written Spring of 1913) is that it requires a trap a size larger to trap small fur bearers in the south than it does in the north, owing to the difference in conditions of the streams and the soil. Well friend Bachelder, there is no use of you and I talking or worrying any more over our bear traps or bear trapping. The gentleman sportsman and his dog has ordered you and I and all other trappers of Pennsylvania for that matter to cast our traps on to the sc.r.a.p pile and we must submit.

CHAPTER XIX.

Camps and Camping.

I will say that the conditions and location in which one is to camp makes a great difference in the preparations. If one is just going outside of town to camp for a few days outing, commodities may be to your liking as to quality and quant.i.ty. In these days, should the larder run low, it is only necessary for the camper to step out a short distance to a farm house where he is almost sure to find a telephone. In such cases all that the camper has to do is to 'phone to town, ordering his favorite brands delivered to camp, and soon an automobile is on the road laden with supplies, hastening to the campers' relief.

Conditions are different when the camper is far from town; or perhaps miles from a dwelling or perhaps even a public road and the camper is compelled to pack his camp outfit, grub stake and all over miles of rough trail, or it may be no trail at all; then the camper must curtail his desires to their utmost limit.

If the camper is on strange ground, and the camp is to be permanent or for some weeks, it is best for the camper not to be in too big a hurry to select the camping ground, and take up with any sort of a place. It is even better to make a temporary camp and look the locality over and select a place where good water can be had, and wood for fuel is plentiful and near camp. If possible, select a spot in a thicket of evergreen timber of a second growth and out of the way of any large trees that might blow onto the camp.

If the ground is sloping, place your camp parallel with the slope, whether tent or log cabin, as the surface water can more readily be drained off, and not allowed to soak into the ground and cause dampness inside of the tent. A ditch should be dug around the tent to drain all surface water, and eaves so the water will not soak inside.

If a log cabin, the dirt from the drain can be thrown up against the logs of the cabin.

If the camper expects to camp through cold and snowy weather, it will pay him to place a ridge pole in crotches placed firmly in the ground. The pole should be a foot above the ridge of the tent, then place poles from the ground, the ends resting on this ridge pole as rafters to a building, then nail a few poles to these rafters sufficient to keep boughs from dropping down onto the tent. The boughs should be of an evergreen variety. This outer covering should be well thatched or covered with these boughs. This extra covering adds greatly to the warmth and comfort of the camp, as it protects from the wind blowing directly on the tent, also keeps the snow from falling onto the tent.

It is also a great convenience if this ridge pole is allowed to extend out three or four feet, and a strip of canvas run over the pole and down to side poles, so as to form a sort of an awning so one can step outside to wash when it is raining without getting wet. It also makes a convenient place to pile a small amount of wood, and will be found useful in many ways such as hanging furs, clothing, etc., out to air.

Do not make your bed on the ground. Build a box bedstead by driving four posts into the ground, then nail pieces across, up about twelve inches from the ground. Lay small poles on these cross pieces, then nail one or two small poles entirely around on the posts above the bottom pieces forming a sort of crib. This crib may be filled first with boughs, then on top of the boughs put a quant.i.ty of leaves or gra.s.s, when the mattress is lacking. There will also be store room under the bed, which would be wasted if the bed is made on the ground.

Brother camper, when you are going well back into the tall timber where you are obliged to pack your outfit over a rough trail or perhaps no trail at all, do not waste any energy packing canned "air"

in the shape of canned fruits. Take your grub in a crude state in the way of flour, beans, lard, bacon or pork, and if fruit is taken, take it in a dried form. Take the necessary supply of tea, coffee, sugar, salt and pepper, also that unavoidable baking powder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOODc.o.c.k FISHING ON PINE CREEK.]

As to preparing an emergency camp for a night, if the weather is cold, and there is snow on the ground, the camper should pick a place where he will be as much sheltered from the cold winds as circ.u.mstances will allow and where he can get wood as conveniently as possible.

Select a log (if one can be had) that lays close to the ground. Now, sc.r.a.pe away the snow about six or eight feet back from this log, and where you will have your bed, build a fire, on this s.p.a.ce the first thing you do. Then build a cover over this s.p.a.ce or fire, by first setting two crotched stakes about four feet apart and five or six feet high, back three feet from the log. Cut a pole, and place it in these crotches and then from this pole lay poles long enough to come back so as to give room for your bed, covering the s.p.a.ce where the fire is built; one end of the poles resting on the ground. With evergreen boughs, cover this entire framework, top and two sides--toward the log open.

Now sc.r.a.pe the fire down against the log and proceed to build your fire for the night. Cover the s.p.a.ce where the fire was with fine boughs; this is your bed. Take off your coat, and spread it over your shoulders, rather than wear it on you as usual.

When the camper has plenty of time, and a good axe, in building an open campfire the thing to do is to cut two logs six or eight inches in diameter and three feet long and place them at right angles with the back log, and three or four feet apart; then lay the wood across these logs. This will give a draft underneath the wood and cause the fire to burn much better than where the wood lays close to the ground.

CHAPTER XX.

Deer Hunt Turned Into a Bear Hunt.

A friend by the name of Dingman invited me to come to his camp on More's Run, a tributary of the Sinnamahoning. This was something like forty years ago, when deer were plentiful and several men in this section made it a business to hunt for the money that there was in it, and Nathan Dingman was one of those men. It was about eight miles from my place to Mr. Dingman's camp.

One morning after we had a fall of snow, I packed my knapsack with as much grub stake as I was able to carry, with my gun and blanket, and started over the hill to Mr. Dingman's camp. After I had crossed the divide, I did not go far before I began to see deer tracks. There was no road or trail down the run, and the run was pretty well filled with timber. I had about all that I could handle without deer tracks, but when I was within about a mile of Mr. Dingman's camp, I came onto the trail of several deer that had only been gone a few minutes. I could not stand it longer, so I hung my pack and blanket up in a tree and took my track back up the stream until I was quite sure that I was well out of range of the deer, and then climbed the ridge until I was near the top of the hill and on advantageous ground.

The direction of the trail of the deer where it crossed the stream led me to think that the deer were going south, or down the ridge but on the contrary they had turned to the right and up the ridge. I had not gone far along the ridge before I began a sharp lookout. I suddenly found the deer lying in a thicket of low laurel. They broke from cover at a breakneck speed. I fired both barrels at them with the best aim that I was able to get, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the deer, a good sized doe, stumble and partly fall, then hobble on in the direction that the other had gone.

It was nearly sundown and I only followed the trail a short distance when I could plainly see that the deer had a foreleg broken, and she soon left the trail of the others, and went down the hill all alone.

Knowing that the wounded deer would soon lay down if not disturbed. I left the trail, went back, got my pack, blanket and went on down the creek to Mr. Dingman's camp. I found Mr. Dingman about to sit down to a supper of roast potatoes, venison and other good things to be found in abundance in the woods in those days.

The next morning we were out at daybreak after the wounded doe. Mr.

Dingman said that when the doe was started up that she would come to water, and that she would stop on the creek below where I had left the trail, which led down the hill until in sight of the creek, when it turned to the right, then went back up the hill only a few yards to the right of her trail where she had gone down.

When I saw what the doe had done, I thought to myself, old lady, you are well onto the game, and we will have lots of sport before we get you. I was well aware that she had seen me when I pa.s.sed by on her trail where she had gone down the hill, and thinking that she would go to the creek below where Mr. Dingman was and told him the game the doe was playing. He said that she would come to water at the point just below the camp, and that he would go down there and watch, while I should follow the track through. I told Mr. Dingman that I was afraid that we were too late, and that the doe had already gone out, that she had made her bed so that she could watch her trail where she went down the hill, and had slipped out after I had gone down the hill on her trail.

Mr. Dingman thought that he could get the runway before she would get through, even if she had gone out when I came through on her trail down the hill. In hopes that the deer had not taken the trail and lit out when I came through the hill, I worked my way cautiously back up the hill, only occasionally going in sight of the trail so as to keep her course, but as I feared, when I was about halfway up the hill, I found her bed, but the doe was gone. I took the trail and followed it up the hill until she struck the trail of the deer that she was with when I first started them, and instead of going down the ridge, she took the back trail of the other deer. I followed it back until near where I had wounded her, when she again broke down the hill and crossed the creek near where I first found their trail, and had gone back onto the same ridge that she had come from.

Now the only thing for me to do was to leave the trail and go after Mr. Dingman again. When I found him and we got back to camp, it was about noon, so we got a warm dinner before continuing the chase. When we got up to where I had left the trail, we held council and made our plans for the next move, and decided that as the old lady was continually doing the unexpected, we would follow her track, one going on each side of the trail a few yards from it.

We had only gone a short distance up the hill when we found the old lady's bed, where she had laid down, so that she could watch back on her trail, where she had come down on the opposite hillside. We did not go far when the trail turned to the left and went up the side of the ridge toward the head of the creek. We continued along the trail one on either side and soon we came to where a large hemlock tree had fallen parallel with the side of the hill. Mr. Dingman was on the upper side and above the fallen tree, while the deer tracks led away below the tree. All of a sudden I heard the report of Mr. Dingman's rifle, so I stood still for a minute, and hearing nothing more I went to see the cause of the shooting. The doe had gone beyond the fallen tree, then turned back and went about midway of the tree, on the upper side and lay down. Mr. Dingman caught a glimpse of the old lady as she went out, but did not catch her.

We did not follow the doe far from where she lay behind the fallen tree, for we crossed the trail of a bear going west, and partly in the direction of that of the wounded deer, which continued to work her cards on us all afternoon without our getting sight of her. At dusk we trailed her into a small thicket at the edge of the farm owned by a man by the name of Foster, at the extreme head of the run.

As it was too late in the day to do any more with the old doe, we concluded to go to Mr. Foster's and stay over night, and take the trail early in the morning. It was snowing a little and we thought that the thicket would be an easy place to find our game, should it snow enough to cover the tracks. In the morning when we got up, we found six or eight inches of snow on the ground, that had fallen during the night. We had an early breakfast, and started out to again play the game with the broken legged doe.

Before we got to the edge of the woods, we struck the trail of some animal, that had gone across the field in the early part of the night before it had snowed much. We were not positive what sort of an animal it was, whether man or beast. The trail was leading straight across the field without a curve in it, and was making straight to a laurel patch that was one and a half miles away on the Taggart farm, less than a mile below Coudersport.

Mr. Dingman said that it was a bear. I admitted that it was a bear all right, but replied that I would say it was making for the Adirondack Mountains in New York, rather than the laurel patch on the Taggert farm. We did not have far to go to make sure, and a good part of the distance was across farms, so we concluded to hunt bear a while, and give the old doe a rest for a short time. As Mr. Dingman said, the bear made straight for the laurel patch.

There was not more than 15 or 20 acres in the patch, so we thought that we would circle it and make sure that the bear was still in the laurel. We found that the bear was there all right, so Mr. Dingman selected a place where he thought the bear would come out when he was routed from his nest, while I was to follow the trail and drive out the bear. I followed until near the center of the patch, when I came onto a small open place forty or fifty feet square. This open s.p.a.ce was covered with a heavy growth of wild gra.s.s which partly held the snow from getting close to the ground, and I could see the trail of the bear through this gra.s.s and loose snow very plain until nearly the opposite side of the open s.p.a.ce, and there I could see a bunch of snow. I was sure that it was the bear that made the bunch.

I thought the matter over for a minute, then concluded to back out and go after Mr. Dingman, and see what he thought would be best in order to make a sure thing of Bruin's capture. Mr. Dingman thought the best thing to do was to go up town and get plenty of help so as to thoroughly surround the laurel, and make sure of Bruin. I objected, as I thought it best to try our own luck, and if we failed we could still get plenty of help. We followed my track back to where I had turned, and concluded to both fire at the bunch at the same time, hit or miss as luck would have it. When we fired at the bunch there was a shaking of snow, and bruin rolled out but was unable to rise to his feet. On examination we found that one ball had entered his shoulder. It was a short job to get bruin out to the road, and take him up to town where we sold him to Mr. Stebbins, a merchant, and then we made tracks back to see if we could find the broken legged doe. We found by circling the thicket that she was there, and we had the good luck to get her. We drove her out, and thus ended one of the liveliest day's sport that we ever had.

CHAPTER XXI.

Dog on the Trap Line.

Now, we will say first that there is as much or more difference in the man who handles the dog as there is in the different breeds of dogs. I have heard men say that they wanted no dog on the trap line with them, and that they didn't believe that any one who did want a dog on the trap line knew but very little about trapping at best.

Now those are the views and ideas of some trappers, while my experience has led me to see altogether different. One who is so const.i.tuted that they must give a dog the growl or perhaps a kick every time they come in reach, will undoubtedly find a dog of but little use on the trap line. I have known some dogs to refuse to eat, and would lay out where they could watch the direction in which their master had gone and piteously howl for hours. I have seen other dogs that would take for the barn or any other place to get out of the way of the first sight or sound of their master. This man's dog is usually more attached to a stranger than to his master. The man who cannot treat his dog as a friend and companion will have good cause to say that a dog is a nuisance on the trap line.

I have seen men training dogs for bird hunting, who would beat the dog most cruelly and claim that a dog could not be trained to work a bird successfully under any other treatment. Though I have seen others train the same breed of dogs to work a bird to perfection and their most harsh treatment that they would use would be a tap or two with a little switch. I will say that one who cannot understand the wag of a dog's tail, the wistful gaze of the eyes, the quick lifting of the ears, the cautious raising of a foot, and above all, treat his dog as a friend, need not expect his dog to be but little else than a nuisance on the trap line.

Several years ago I had a partner who had a dog--part stag hound and the other part just dog, I think. One day he, my partner, asked if I would object to his bringing the dog to camp, saying that his wife was going on a visit and he had no place to leave the dog. I told him that if he had a good dog I would be glad to have the dog in camp. In a day or two pard went home and brought in the dog. Well, when he came, the dog was following along behind his master with tail and ears drooping, and looking as though he had never heard a kind word in his life. I asked if the dog was any good and he replied that he did not know how good he was. I asked the name of the dog. He said, "Oh, I call him Pont." I spoke to the dog, calling him by name. The dog looked at me wistfully, wagging his tail. The look that dog gave me said as plain as words that that was the first kind word he had ever heard.