Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper Part 4

The guns that father had were one double barrel shotgun and a single barrel rifle, both flintlocks, and with much anxiety I watched those guns and begged of the older members of the family to let me shoot the gun but mother was ever on the watch to see that I was not allowed to handle the guns.

About this time a man moved into the place by the name of Abbott from Schuylkill County, Pa., who brought two guns with him, a double barrel shotgun and a double barrel rifle. After doing some hard begging Mr. Abbott said that I could take the shotgun but that he could not furnish the ammunition. I later thought that Mr. Abbott thought that the problem of getting ammunition would put me up the tree. But again the will was good and I soon found a way. I began to watch the hen's nests pretty close and hide away the eggs and mother began to complain that the hens were not laying as many eggs as usual. Well, three dozen of eggs would get a pound of shot, a fourth of a pound of powder and a box of G. D. gun caps.

I had some fine times out with the gun and I always gave Mr. Abbott whatever game I killed. I did not dare to take it home fearing that I would be compelled to explain how I came by the game. One day I had been out after wild pigeons and had got quite a number or more than I liked to give away and go without ourselves. I thought I would resort to one of those white lies that we have all heard tell of. I told my parents that Mr. Abbott gave me the pigeons but the plan did not work, although it was the making of me so far as a gun is concerned.

When father inquired of Mr. Abbott as to how I got the pigeons it brought out the whole thing as to the gun business and also why the egg basket had not filled up as usual. The result was that father and mother held a council of war and decided that if I was to have a gun the better way was to let me have one of my own. Father told me that I must not borrow a gun any more but take one of our own guns and that he (father) would take the gun to the gunsmith and have the locks changed from a flint lock to a cap lock.

You may be sure that this was the best news that this kid ever heard.

I picked up double the usual stone piles that day and went and got the cows without being told a half dozen times.

Well, as every hunter and trapper who is born and not made is always looking for taller timber and trying to get farther and farther from the ting-tong of the cow bells, so it was in my case. I had seen some whelp wolves that friends of ours (Harris and Leroy Lyman, who were noted hunters) had got. They had gone onto the waters of the Sinnemahoning and taken five pup wolves not much larger than kittens, from their den. The puppies were brought out alive but they killed the old mother wolf. On their way home they stopped at our house so that we could see the young wolves.

I heard these hunters tell how they discovered the wolf den; how they had howled in imitation of a wolf to call the old wolves up; how they had shot the old female and had then taken the young wolves from the den; heard them tell of the money that the bounty on wolves would bring them (there was $25 bounty on all wolves then, the same as now). All of this made me long for the day when I would be old enough to do as these noted hunters had done.

I had already found a den of young foxes and had kept five of them alive, which father finally killed all but one because he said they were a nuisance. I had seen some Indians bring a live elk in with ropes, dogs and horses, which they had roped in, after the dogs had brought it to bay, on a large rock on Tombs Run (Waters of Pine Creek).

All this made me hungry for the day that I too could hit the trail and trap line that I might get some of those wolves and with the bounty money buy traps and guns to my satisfaction.

A number of persons at our place (Lymansville) had gone several miles into the woods to the headwaters of the Sinnamahoning and taken up fifty acres of land. An acre or two was cleared off and the timber from this clearing was drawn and put in an immense pile to be used for the camp fire. The camp was simply a shed or leanto, open on one side, and in front of this shed the fire was built of beech and maple logs. Brook trout and game of all kinds were in abundance. Two or three times during the summer a party of six or eight persons would go out to this clearing and camp a week, killing as many deer as they could make use of, jerking a good portion to take home with them and having a general good time feasting on trout, venison and other game, and amusing themselves shooting at marks, pitching quoits, etc. I will add that the main reason they went to this camp was for a good time rather than the game, as game was plentiful right at their homes in those days.

Well, it was at one of these outings that I killed my first bear. I was about thirteen years old, and, of course, in my own mind, it made a mighty hunter of me, not to be compared with Esau of old. It was in June and shortly after we got to camp there was a heavy thunder storm, but it all pa.s.sed over before sundown, the sun coming out nice and bright. I was determined to go with some of the men to watch a lick (there were three or four licks not far away), but none of the men cared to have my company, and they said it was likely to rain again and made many excuses why I should not go to watch a lick with them. Just before they were ready to start out to the lick we heard a wolf howl away off on the hills and they (the men) put up the wolf scare on me and said that there would be no deer come to the lick so long as wolves were in the neighborhood. I took their stories all in but insisted that I would watch a lick all the same. There was a lick only a few hundred yards from camp, but for some cause deer rarely ever worked it. When they saw that I was going to watch a lick in spite of thunder storms, wolves or all the rest of the excuses that they could make, they finally said that I could watch the lick which I have mentioned and get eaten up by wolves.

There was a blazed line from camp to the lick and when the men started for the licks that each one had decided on watching, I started to the lick that was given me to watch.

There was one man left in camp to watch the horses and to keep camp.

This man said that when he heard me shoot he would come up and help me bring in the deer.

The blind at the lick was a scaffold built up in a tree twenty or thirty feet from the ground. I climbed to the scaffold and placed the old gun in the loops that were fastened to limbs on the tree to give the gun the proper range to kill the deer, should one come to the lick after it was too dark to see to shoot.

Nothing came round the lick before dark, but as soon as it got dark I could hear animals walking and jumping on all sides of me and one old inquisitive porcupine came up the tree to see what I was doing. He perched himself on a limb not more than two feet from my face and sat there and chattered his teeth until I could stand it no longer. I took the large powder horn that I had strung over my shoulder with a cord and gave the porcupine a rap on the nose that sent him tumbling down the tree. I remember well how other animals scampered from under the tree when the porcupine tumbled down. At that time I wondered what it all was, but later I learned that all these animals were only flying squirrels, rabbits and porcupines, but I imagined that the noises were made by anything but squirrels and rabbits.

Well, about eleven o'clock I heard something coming towards the lick with a steady tread like that of a man and again I was taken with a chill that caused the scaffold to shake, but the chill only lasted for a moment. Soon I heard the animal step in the soft mud and directly it began to suck the salt from the dirt and I was sure that it was a deer and that it was the right time to pull the trigger, which I did. When the report of the gun died away all that I could hear were the same noises that were made when I knocked the old porcupine from the tree. I now feared that I had pulled the gun on some other animal rather than a deer. I thought the report of the gun would frighten all the deer in the woods, so that no deer would go to the licks the men were watching. I was afraid I would get a terrible scolding by the men who were watching the other licks when they came to camp in the morning.

After waiting some time and hearing no noise of any kind, I concluded to get down and go to camp. Upon getting down from the tree I decided that I would go and look in the lick and see if I could tell what it was that I had heard there and had shot at. As it was so dark that I could not see from the blind, you can imagine my surprise when I got to the lick to see a large buck deer lying broadside as dead as could be.

I immediately lost all fear of being scolded by the other men, so I claimed first blood. I began calling for the man who remained in camp but could get no answer from him so I went down to camp and found him fast asleep. I awakened him and we immediately made a torch and went to the lick and dragged the deer to camp. Then we took out the entrails and bunked down for the rest of the night.

The next thing that I knew, one of the men who had watched a lick not far away was kicking me and saying, "Get out of this, you old deer slayer, you, and get some venison frying for breakfast." We were soon up for the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly and more than an hour high. Soon the other watchers came in and reported that not a sound of a deer had they heard about their licks. Two or three of us (I say "us"

because I was now counted as one of them) went to catch trout for breakfast, while the others were at work taking care of the venison and preparing breakfast, boiling coffee, frying venison and trout.

And so the day was spent, sleeping, c.o.c.king and eating until it was again time to go to the licks, as the men wished to get another deer so as to have plenty of venison to take home with them. When the men were about ready to start to their watching places, one of them inquired of me what I would do as there was no further use of watching the lick where I had killed the deer, as it was blooded from the deer I had killed.

The man who had watched the lick nearest the camp, and quite an old man, said that I could watch the lick that he had watched and he would stay in camp. (The men now acknowledged me as a thoroughbred hunter, you see.) Well, I was getting there pretty lively, I thought, when an old hunter would give up his lick to me, when only the evening before none of the men thought that I was up to watching a lick at any price.

I was pleased to again have a place to watch. Taking some punk wood to make a little smoke to keep off the gnats and mosquitoes, I started for the lick and climbed the Indian ladder to the scaffold, built in a hemlock tree.

I had barely got fixed in shape to begin to watch when I chanced to look towards a small ravine that came down from the hill a few yards to my left and saw what I took to be a black yearling steer. I will add that the woods in that locality were covered with a rank growth of nettles, cow cabbage and other wood's feed, and people would drive their young cattle off into that locality to run during the summer. I thought I would get down from the scaffold and throw stones at it and drive it off lest it might come into the lick after dark and I might take it for a deer and shoot it.

As I started to climb down I again looked in the direction of the steer, and this time I saw what I thought was the largest bear that ever traveled the woods. He had left the ravine and was walking with his head down, going up the hill and past the lick. I c.o.c.ked both barrels of the gun and raised it carefully to my shoulder, and, breaking a little dry twig I had in my hand caused the bear to stop and turn his head around so as to look down the hill. This was my time so I leveled on his head and shoulders and let go both barrels of the gun at once.

The bear went into the air and then began tumbling and rolling down the hill towards the tree that I was in, bawling and snorting like mad. But if the bear made a howl from pain he was in, it was no comparison to the howl that I made for help and it did not cease until the men in camp came on the run thinking that I had accidentally shot myself. Well, this was my first bear and it was the greatest day of my life.

We took the bear to camp, skinned and dressed it and then went to bunk for the night, but it was very little I slept for I could only think what a mighty hunter I was (in my mind).

The men came in in the morning with no better luck than they had the night before, and they all declared that if I had not been with them they would have had to go without venison.

The men said that we had meat in plenty now and that we would not watch the licks any more that time, so they put in their time jerking the venison and also some of the bear meat. They built a large fire of hemlock bark, and when it was burned down to a bed of coals so that there was no longer any smoke, they made a rack or grate of small poles, laid in crotches driven in the ground, so as to have the grate over the coals, and then laid the slices of venison on this grate and stood green bark about the grate to form a sort of an oven.

The strips of meat were first sprinkled with salt and wrapped up in the skin from the deer and allowed to remain wrapped in the skin for a few hours until the salt would strike through the meat so as to make it about right as to salt.

The men remained in camp about a week. They would shoot at a mark, pitch quoits and have jumping contests and other amus.e.m.e.nts, including fis.h.i.+ng, eating trout, venison and bear meat along with toasted bread and coffee and potatoes roasted in the ashes.

The time had arrived when I thought that I must take to the taller timber to trap and hunt. I searched among the boys of my age, in the neighborhood, for a partner who would go with me to the Big Woods, as the section where I wished to go, was called. I finally found a pard who said he would go with me and stay as long as I cared to.

The middle of October came. We packed our knapsacks with a grub stake, a blanket or two, and taking our guns started for the Big Woods, with a feeling that is not known to those who are not lovers of the wild.

As we only had a limited number of steel traps it was our intention to spend the first week in camp, building deadfalls for c.o.o.n and mink and use the steel traps for fox. Our intention was to build as many deadfalls as we would be able to attend to before we baited and set any of them. We had built our traps on many of the small brooks and streams to the south and east of the camp, and had built traps on the stream on which the camp was located nearly a mile below camp.

About a mile and a half below camp there was another branch coming in from the north. Pard and I started early one morning to finish the line of traps on the camp stream and then go up the stream that came from the north and build as many traps as we could during the balance of the day. We had finished the line of traps on the camp stream, and had built a trap or two on the other branch, when pard complained of having a bad headache, but refused to go to camp. We built another trap or two, when pard consented to go to camp, if I would build another trap on a little spring run where c.o.o.n signs were plentiful, which I readily consented to do. When I got the trap done it was nearly sundown.

It was about three miles to camp so I hurried to see how pard was feeling. I had not gone more than a half mile on my way from where pard turned back to go to camp, when I found him lying on the ground.

He said that he was feeling so sick that he was unable to go any further and complained that every bone in his body ached.

After explaining to pard the conditions under which we were placed, it was with difficulty that I managed to get him up, and by supporting and half carrying him I managed to get him along a few rods at a time. I could see that he was continually growing worse.

After I had helped until we were within about three-quarters of a mile of camp, he begged me to let him lie down and rest. I tried to urge him along by explaining that I must go for a team to get him out of the woods, and that I could not leave him lying there on the damp ground. It was of no use; I could not get him to go any further.

While I was somewhat older than pard, he was much the heavier, and I was unable to carry him.

Taking in the situation, there was only one thing for me to do and that was to leave him and go for help. After making him promise that as soon as he rested he would work his way to camp I took off my coat, and put it under him, again making him promise to get to camp, I started for help.

The night was dark and it was miles through the woods to the first house. When I came to camp I stopped long enough to get a bite to eat which I took in my hand. After lighting a fire so if pard did manage to get to camp he would have a good fire, I started for help.

Wherever the light would get through the trees enough so that I could see the path, I would take a trot. After the first mile and a half I came to the turnpike road where I could make better time although it was dense woods. After about six or seven miles I reached the first clearing and from there the rest of the way was more or less clearings and I could see the road better and was able to make better time.

I reached pard's home about a mile before I came to my home, rattled at the door and called for pard's father. I told him the condition of his son. He requested me to go to my home and get some of my family to take a team and start back at once after his son; he would go after a doctor and have the doctor there when we got back with the boy. I lost no time in getting started back. We could not get nearer than a mile and a half to the camp, as we were obliged to leave the wagon road at that point, and go down a very steep hill and only a trail cut through the woods. When we reached the camp, contrary to expectations, we found Orlando (that was pard's name) lying in the bunk in camp but he said that he was feeling no better. It was after midnight and we lost no time in getting him on one of the horses and started back to the wagon which we reached with some difficulty. On reaching the wagon we laid him on a straw bed which we had brought for the purpose and got back to his home sometime after daybreak.

The doctor was there and after examining pard said he feared it was a bad case of fever. I waited a few days to see if he would be able to go back to camp and then the doctor told me that he would not be out of bed in two months and advised me to keep out of the woods or I would be brought out on a stretcher. I had my mind on all those deadfalls that we had built and all the c.o.o.n, mink and fox that we could catch, and was determined to go back to camp notwithstanding our friend's advice to the contrary. After looking around for another partner which I was unable to find as no one wished to go and stay longer than a day or two (what we call summer trappers), I again packed my knapsack and went back to camp. The next morning, after catching a good lot of trout for c.o.o.n and mink bait, I began the work of setting the hundred or more deadfalls that pard and I had built.

As soon as I had all the deadfalls set I hunted up good places to set the traps that we had. I was so busy all the time that there was no chance to get lonesome. Every day there were c.o.o.n and mink to skin and stretch. Now and then a big, old c.o.o.n was so strong that he would tear the deadfall to pieces and I would be compelled to build it all over and make it stronger.

What a difference there is now with the many styles of traps and the H-T-T to guide the young hunter and trapper. If I could have had a couple dozen of the No. 1 1/2 Victor traps made as at the present time, I would have been as proud as a small boy with a new pair of boots, although I think what was lacking in modern traps was fully made up by the number of furbearing animals.

I had been so busy during the two weeks I was in camp that I had forgotten the day of the week; neither did I take time to kill a deer or to go up to the road to see if anyone had written, to see if I was dead or alive. There was a stage pa.s.sed over the road twice a week. I had nailed a box with a good tight lid on a tree by the road so that I could send a line out home for anything I wanted or my family could write to me.

I had two or three traps set for foxes up towards the road along the edge of a laurel patch where there were plenty of rabbits and the foxes worked around to catch rabbits. I thought I would go to the road and be there about the time the stage pa.s.sed along and see if I could hear anything from pard and the folks at home and then I could tend the traps on my way back to camp.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOODc.o.c.k AND SOME OF HIS CATCH.]

I was at the road shortly before the stage came along and was surprised as well as delighted to see a neighbor boy by the name of Frank Curtis aboard the stage as he had said he would come over and stay a day or two with me in camp. Frank had not been allowed to spend much time with a gun or traps, but like most boys, he liked a gun. My mother died before I was eleven years old and father allowed me to trap and hunt about as I liked.

When we got down near the traps we set our packs down--I say we, for my folks had sent me a new supply of provisions--and went to look after the traps. The first one had a rabbit leg in it and it was plain to be seen that some animal had eaten the rabbit. We reset the trap and went on to the next trap which was set in a little gorge or hollow. A few yards below the trap two large trees had blown down across the little hollow. The tree on the side farthest down the hill from the trap had broken in two where it fell over the hollow and dropped down so that it laid close to the ground while the tree on the upper side, the side nearest the trap, lay a foot from the ground in the hollow.