CHAPTER XIII

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Hunting and Trapping in Cameron County, Pa., in 1869.

In my last letter on hunting and trapping in Cameron County, I promised to give Bill Earl's and my own experience in hunting in that county the next season. Well the story is not long, as we had our camp already built, we concluded not to go out into the woods until it was time to begin hunting and to put out bear traps. Accordingly on the last day of October we took a man with a team to take our traps, camp outfit and the grub stake to camp.

Going by the way of Emporium in that county, we were compelled to stay there over night, the distance being too far to reach camp the first day. At Emporium we purchased what more necessaries we needed, that we had not brought from home. We reached camp the second day about 10 o'clock. When we came in sight of the camp, Bill was walking ahead of the team with an axe cutting out brush here and there as needed. All of a sudden Bill stopped, set down the axe and looked in the direction of the shanty. When I was close enough so Bill could speak to me, he said, "I be-dog-on if the wicky is not occupied." I asked, "What with, porcupines?" Bill's reply was that he had known porkies to do some dog-on mean work, but he had never known them to build fires.

I could now see the shack, and sure enough there was a little smoke curling up from the chimney. Bill said that he hoped that there was no one there that wanted to tarry long, for he was dog-on sorry if that wicky was large enough for two families.

We found the shanty occupied alright. There was a sack of crackers set on the table and a pot of tea set in the chimney and a couple of blankets lay on the bunk. After Bill had sized up the contents of the camp, he concluded that the occupants did not intend to stay long, judging from their outfit, but Bill was mistaken. Bill said that he would proceed to clean house at any rate.

We had taken in new straw for the bunk, so we threw the old boughs and the other litter outside and burned it and went in for a general house cleaning. Just before dark, two men came in great haste. One rushed into the shack and demanded to know what in h--- does this mean. Bill said, "nothing, just moving in is all."

Then the spokesman said, "Do you fellows pretend to own this camp?" Bill replied that we did, as we did some dog-on hard work building it at least. The one man continued to go on with a great deal of telling what he would do and what he would not, until we had supper ready, when we asked the men to eat with us. The man that had done very little talking readily consented but the other man was still inclined to bully matters, but he finally took a stool and sat up and ate his supper. After supper we learned that they were from near Wellsville, N. Y. We made arrangements for the men to sleep on the floor, or rather on the ground at the side of the bunk.

The next morning after breakfast was over, the man who proposed to run things to his own liking said that he did not see any other way but what we would all have to get along together the best way we could in the shanty. This was more than Bill could stand so he opened on the man and said, "See here, stranger, I am dog-on if a aint willing to do almost anything to be neighborly, but I am dog-on if it don't take a large house for two families to live in, and this shack is altogether too small."

It now began to look as though we were not going to be good neighbors very long, when the man that had but very little to say, up to this time, said, "See here, Hank, you know that this is not our shanty. I told you that some one would be here and want it," and he took his blankets, gun and sack of crackers and started off down the run. After the other man had done some more loud talking, he gathered up the rest of their plunder and started on after his partner with the remark that he would see us again. Bill replied that he would be dog-on pleased to have him come when we were at home.

We were a little afraid that they might return and do us some dirt, but they did not. They went farther down the run and built a sort of a shelter out of boughs and pieces of bark where they stayed about two weeks, when they went home, leaving the field to Bill and myself.

We put in two days cutting wood and calking and mudding the shanty wherever the chinking and mud had been worked out by squirrels and other small animals. As soon as we had this work done we put in our time setting our bear traps. We also built two bear pens. After we had the bear traps all set, we then began putting out small traps, setting the most of the small steel traps for fox and building more deadfalls and repairing those that we had made the year before for marten on the ridges, and along the creek for mink and coon.

After this work was done we gave more time to bear hunting. We had a good deal of freezing weather without much snow for tracking. Being very noisy under foot, we were compelled to hunt for several days by driving the deer, that is, one of us would stand on the runways in the heads of basins or hollows and in the low places on the ridges where it was natural for deer to pass through when jumped up. In going from one ridge to another, we would get a deer in this way nearly every day, and one day we had the good luck to get three bears while driving, an old bear and two cubs. We were also having fairly good luck with the traps.

The first snow that fell to make good tracking was a damp one, and hung on the underbrush so much that it was impossible to see but a few yards unless in very open timber. Here I wish to relate an incident that nearly caused my hair to turn white in a very short time. I am not given very much to superstitions or alarmed at unnatural causes, but in this case I will confess that I felt like showing the white feather.

I was working my way very cautiously along the side of a ridge and down near the base of the hill in low timber, as that is the most natural place to find deer in a storm of this kind. I had just stepped out of the thicket into the edge of a strip of open timber where I could see for several rods along the side of the hill. I had barely stepped into the open when I caught sight of some object jumping from a knoll to a log where it was partly concealed behind some trees, so that I was unable to make out what it was. I was sure that I had never seen anything like it before, either in the woods or out in civilization. I could get a glimpse of the thing as it would pass between the trees, then it would disappear behind brush or a large tree for a moment, then I would get a glimpse of it as it would move.

Sometimes it would appear white and then a fire red. I could see that it was coming in my direction. As I always wore steel gray, or what was commonly known as sheep gray clothing, which is nearly the same color of most large timber, I stepped to a large hemlock tree, leaned close against the tree, set my gun down close to my side and stood waiting to see whether the thing was natural or otherwise.

It was not long before I could see that I had been frightened without any real cause, for it was a hunter who had dressed in fantastic array to put a spell on or charm the deer. He had on a long snow white overshirt and had tied a fire red cloth over his hat and a black sash was tied about his waist. I stood perfectly quiet against the tree until the man was within a few feet of me, I could no longer keep from laughing, and I burst out with laughter. The man jerked his gun from his shoulder as he turned in the direction in which I was standing and gazed at me for a moment and then said, "You frightened me." I replied that I guessed that he was no more frightened than I was when I first caught sight of him.

Well the man explained that he always dressed in that manner when the underbrush was loaded with snow, as the deer would stand and watch him with curiosity until he was within gun shot. When in New Mexico many years after I had tied a red handkerchief to a bush to attract the curiosity of the antelope, and it reminded me of the hunter that I had seen working the curiosity dodge on the deer.

That night when I got into camp, Bill had not got in but came soon after, and he had hardly got the shack door open when he began roaring with laughter. I inquired what it was that pleased him so. "Pleased me so?" "I guess I was pleased, and had you seen the dog-on nondescript that I did, you would have laughed your boots up." I asked if he had seen the man dressed in red, white and black. Bill asked, "Did you see it too?" I told him of the hunter that I had met and talked with. Bill said that he had not been close enough to speak to it, and he was dog-on if he knew whether it was safe to get too close to the dog-on thing or not.

We had good tracking snow from this time on during the remainder of the hunting season. We now each hunted by himself, working as usual over the ground that would bring us in the locality of our traps, which we would look after and relieve any fur bearers that we chanced to get.

We met with one mishap during the season. Well along toward December I went to one of the bear traps that we had not been to in a number of days. The trap was a blacksmith made one with high jaws. I found the trap a short distance from where it had been set, tangled in an old tree top with a bear's foot in it. The bear had been caught just above the foot. As the trap jaws closed tight together the trap clog had got fast solid in the brush soon after the bear had been caught. The animal twisted and pulled until he had unjointed the foot, worn and twisted off the skin and cords of the leg and was gone. He had escaped some time during the night before I came to the trap.

I reset the trap and then took the trail of the bear, which had taken a northeasterly course. I followed the trail until nearly night, when I became satisfied that he was making for a large windfall on a stream known as the South Fork, some fifteen miles away. I gave up the trail and returned to camp, which I reached about 10 o'clock at night. Bill was still keeping supper warm for me well knowing that something was out of the ordinary and wondering what it was.

The next morning we held a council and concluded to look after a few traps near camp and put in a day of partial rest and prepare to take the bear's trail early the next morning. As planned the next morning, we had our blankets and a grub stake strapped to our backs and were off for the trail some time before daylight. Striking the bear's trail where I had left it about 9 o'clock in the forenoon, we followed the trail good and hard all day through wind jams and laurel patches, coming to the big windfall just before dark, very tired.

We put up a rude shelter and camped for the night at the edge of the windfall. In the morning as soon as it was light enough to travel without danger of passing over the trail we were on the move. There were several hundred acres in the windfall so we concluded to go around and make sure that the bear was still there. Bill skirted the jam to the left while I went to the right. Not long after daylight it began to snow. We met on the east side of the jam about 11 o'clock without seeing anything of the crippled bear track, though I had crossed the trail of two bears that had gone into the jam two or three days before.

We now concluded to go back to where the two bears had gone into the jam and one of us stand near the trail while the other one would drop below the trail and work around on the opposite side and drive them out if he could. The wind was blowing strong from the northeast, which would make it next to impossible for the bears to wind the watches. Bill said that he would watch as he could stand the cold weather better than I could. It was now snowing very hard, and we knew that the bears were aware of the approaching storm and had gone to the windfall to go into winter quarters. Chances were that they would not come out unless driven by getting close on to them. We were in hopes that the three bears might be all in one nest, and that the one that did the driving would stand a fair chance to get a shot at them as they left.

I made my calculations from what I knew of the jam about where the bear would lay. Good luck was on my side this time and I hit it just right, coming on to them from the opposite side from where they had gone in, but I did not see or hear them when they went out. The first thing I knew of their whereabouts was when I came on to where the bears had been breaking laurel brush for their bunk. Will I did some fine looking and listening, but all to no purpose, as they had got the wind of me and had gone out. Undoubtedly they would not have done this had they been in their nest a few days longer and had got well to sleep.

They had gone in under two large trees that had been blown out by the roots. They had taken dry rotten wood torn from the two old trees that formed the root to their winter quarters, and with laurel brush and other matter they had made very good quarters for the winter. I soon discovered that the lame bear was not with the two other bears. I did not follow the trail very far when I came onto the trail of the lame bear going on still further into the jam, but I did not follow it but continued on after the two bears to learn what luck Bill had had. I heard no gun shot and was afraid that the bear had not come within gun shot of Bill, although the bears were following nearly back on their trail that they went in on.

When I came to the edge of the wind jam, I saw that the bear had of a sudden made some big jumps down the side of the hill. One of them had turned back into the jam while the other had followed down the hill, and Bill's track was following the trail. I did not go far when I saw Bill tugging away at the bear trying to draw it down to the hollow and near where we had camped the night before.

It was still snowing very hard, and after getting the bear down to the hollow and near to what was called in those days a wagon road--a near trail cut out through the woods--we went to the camp where we had stayed over night and rebuilt the fire and ate a lunch. We had not eaten anything since morning, not wishing to spare the time. It was snowing so hard, and as we knew that we would not be able to reach camp until well along in the night, we concluded to again use the camp of the night before. We gathered a few more hemlock boughs and made the shelter a little more comfortable and went to roasting bear meat on a stick to help out the grub we had brought with us, so that we could look further for the lame bear the next morning.

When morning came, it had snowed more than twelve inches, and as we were satisfied that the lame bear would not leave the jam, we concluded to go down the run about five miles to where a man lived by the name of Reese. Arrangements were made with him to get the bear down to his place where we could get it later. From Mr. Reese's we went to camp and waited a few days for the snow to settle a little. On the way back to camp we looked at two or three bear traps and found a small bear in one of the traps, and the last bear that we got during the season.

We now began to take in the bear traps as we came near one on the way to camp. The snow was so deep we were obliged to reset the most of the small traps, although we had when setting out the traps taken every precaution to set in such places as would afford them all the shelter possible. After tending all the traps again, we went once more to see if we could route the lame bear. We spent two days searching the windfall in every quarter, but were unable to find a trace of the track. We were quite positive that she was still somewhere in the jam, but the snow had fallen so deep that it had completely obliterated all signs.

Two years later I was one of a party that killed a bear and captured her two cubs. The old bear had one foot gone. I am quite sure that it was the one that had escaped from our traps.

We now put in the time hunting deer and looking after the small traps until about the first of January, when we pulled all of our traps and went home. This ended my hunting with William Earl, one of the best pards that I ever hit the trail with, or followed a trap line. Bill left these parts and went back east to his native state, and after a time I lost all trace of him.

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