er) County in a section known
as "The Black Forest" and it was here that I learned many things from
an experienced trapper and hunter that served me well on the trap
line and the trail, in the years that followed.

It was here that I made my first bed in a foot or more of snow with a
fire against a fallen tree and a few boughs thrown on the ground for
a bed. At other times perhaps a bear skin just removed from the bear
for covering, or I might have no covering other than to remove my
coat and spread it over me. This I have often done when belated on
the trail so that I was unable to reach the cabin and was happy and
contented.

It was here I first learned to do up the saddles or the carcass of a
deer in the more convenient way to carry. It was here that I took my
first practical lessons in skinning, stretching, curing and handling
of skins and furs. I also learned many things of traps and trapping
and to do away with sheath knives and other unnecessary burdens on
the trap line. In my younger days I preferred to "go it alone" when
in a country that I was familiar with and many a week I have spent in
my cabin alone save for my faithful dog, but as I grew older and
became afflicted with rheumatism I have found a partner more
acceptable.

I have met with many queer circumstances while on the trap line and
trail, yet I have never met with any of those bloodcurdling and
hair-breadth escapes from wild animals which are mostly "pipe dreams".
Perhaps the nearest I ever came to being seriously hurt by a wild
animal was from a large buck deer. It was in November and on a stormy
day. I had killed a doe and was in the act of dressing the doe and
was leaning over the deer at work. I was within a few feet of a
fallen tree. Hearing a slight noise, I raised up to see what caused
it, when with the speed of a cannon ball a buck flew past me, barely
missing and landed six or eight feet beyond me.

The deer had come up to this fallen tree on the track of the doe and
seeing me at work over the doe, became angered and sprung at me and
only my straightening up at the very instant that I did saved me from
being seriously hurt or perhaps killed. I sprang over the log. The
deer stood and gazed at me for a moment. His eyes were of a green hue
and the hair on his back all stuck up towards his head. After gazing
at me for a moment the deer walked slowly away. The suddenness of the
occurrence so unnerved me that I was unable to shoot for some mi