t he could not make up his mind what it was,
but thought it was some kind of an animal in a trap, but we knew of
no one trapping in that locality.

I did not know but it might be possible that some animal had gotten
in one of my otter traps and had broken the chain and gone off with
the trap. Early in the morning I went down the creek to look at the
traps and see if they were all right. When I came to the Spring Run I
saw that my otter (or at least I called it my otter), had again gone
up the run, on his usual round of travel. When I came to where the
trap was it wasn't there at all.

I had fastened the trap to a root that was two or three inches under
water and a root that I supposed sound. I was mistaken, for the root
was pretty doty and the otter had broken the root and gone with my
trap. I lost no time in taking up the chase. The trail led up this
run to its source, then over a spur of ridge and down the hill again
into a branch of the main stream, then up this branch for a distance
of a mile or more, where I came up with him.

He had gone under the roots of a large hemlock tree, and it took me
two or three hours to get him out with nothing to work with only my
belt axe and a sharpened stake. It was nearly night when I got to
camp. I made a stretching board from a spault I split out of a
basswood log and stretched the otter skin, and put in the balance of
the day in chopping wood. One of the boys killed three deer that day.
I do not remember which one it was.

The next day I made the rounds of nearly all the traps and got what I
have many a time before--nothing. I put in three or four days still
hunting and had the luck to kill a deer or two, but Charley and Will
killed more than I did. I remember, during this time, they were all
the time joking me because they were getting more deer than I did. I
claimed that they had the best grounds to hunt on, they hunting east
of the camp and up nearer the head of the stream, while I hunted west
of the camp.

We would see bear tracks nearly every day, and Will and Charley would
try to get around in their hunting course so as to look at the two
bear traps, the traps being in the direction in which they hunted.
They found the traps undisturbed. I had about made up my mind that I
would get no more bear that trip. I was getting a marten, mink or
coon now and then, so that I kept a stiff upper lip if the boys did
kill a few deer more than I did. Finally one night when I came t