title to all the bear I could
catch, but they did not care to invest. So I took the axe and some
bait and went to the head of a small draft where the boys had seen
the bear tracks. I found at the head of this hollow what seemed to be
a bear runway or crossing, for three or four bears had passed around
the head of this basin in the past few days.

With some hard work and heavy lifting I got another good deadfall
built that day. The next day I went the rounds of the marten and mink
traps, and I think I killed a deer and got two marten. I remember
that at this time we had a good snow to hunt on, and that it was not
an uncommon thing for us to cut wood for the camp long after dark,
and sometimes it was pretty scant at that. I think it was the third
day after I had set the first bear trap when Will came in, shortly
after Charley and I had got to camp, and as he stuck his head through
the hoghole (as I called the substitute for a door) he says, a fool
for luck.

I suspicioned what was coming and said, "Well, what kind of luck have
you had?"

Will said, "It is not me that has had the luck, but you have got one
of the Jed-blasted bears up there in that rigging you built, you ever
see."

I remember that I had some kind of a hipo that night, so that I would
laugh every now and then "kindy" all by myself. I do not think that I
slept much that night, though it was not the first bear I had ever
caught. I thought it was beginning to look as though the laugh was
coming my way all right.

In the morning the boys went to the trap with me and helped get the
bear out of the trap and helped set the trap again, and then went on
with their deer hunting. I went to skinning the bear, and it was all
I did that day to skin that bear and stretch the skin on the shanty.
I told the boys when they came in that night that I thought we were
going to have a hard winter, and so I concluded to weatherboard the
camp with bear skins. The carcass of the bear was, of course, a
complete loss, and that is a serious objection to the deadfall as a
bear trap.

I think that it was about this time that Will met with an accident in
his foot gear, so he went out to Kane after a pair of gum shoes. At
this time we had several deer so thought it best to have the team
come in and take them out and ship them.

When Will came back that evening he said that some kind of an animal
had crossed the path about one-half mile from camp, dragging
something. He said tha