r withe to stretch the skins over, bending them in the
form of a stretching board the best I could and hang the pelts in the
old elm tree and kept mum. I remembered the old adage, "he that
laughs last, laughs best," and was bound to have the last laugh.

One night Will came in and said that a bear had eaten up the offal
where he had dressed a deer. I asked him if he was going to set a
trap for him, and he said that he had no trap to set. I told him to
build a deadfall. Will said that I could have that job if I wanted
it. I told him all right if he would tell me where to find the place.
He said that he would go with me in the morning and show me. In the
morning I took the best axe, some bait and went with Will to the
place where the bear had eaten the offal. We saw that the bear had
been back there during the night and cleaned up the remains left the
previous night.

I selected a good sized beech tree, where I could fell it so that I
could cut a piece from the butt for the bottom piece and have the
remainder of the tree come so that I could use a small tree for one
of the stakes or posts. When I pulled off my coat and began chopping
on the tree Will gave me the laugh again, and said that I had more
days' work in me than brains, or something to that effect.

It was my intention to get the trap all ready and then get one of the
boys to help me set it. I got the trap done and saw that by using a
long lever or pry I could set the trap without the aid of another.
With the pry I raised the dead piece up as high as I wanted it. Then
tied the lever to a sapling to hold the dead log in place, using the
figure four trigger. I placed a bit of log in the bait pen to rest
the bait spindle on. I then placed the trigger in place and pressed
them between the logs to steady them until I could release the lever
and let the weight onto the trigger. I then put some poles onto the
dead log to make doubly sure that I had weight enough to kill any
bear that traveled those woods. I now went to camp giving myself
credit of doing a good job.

When the boys came in the night of the day I built the first deadfall
for bear, they both reported seeing bear tracks and they said the
tracks all seemed to be going south. I told the boys that the bear
were looking up winter quarters, and that if we would all go at it
and put up several deadfalls we would stand a fair chance to get a
bear or two, but it was no go.

They said they would give me a clean