o
camp I found the carcass of a bear, skin and all lying at the shanty
door. I thought it was one that either Charley or Will had killed. I
found that the boys by chance had met near one of the bear traps, and
going to the trap found the bear. As it was a small one they took it
out, set the trap and brought the bear to camp.

It was now getting along in December and the snow was getting rather
deep and the weather was pretty cold and the game did not move about
very much. We all seemed to get a little lazy, and did not get out
till after noon. In fact, some days, if the weather was pretty sharp,
we did not go out at all but would stay in camp and talk of the hunt
and tell where we thought we could find a bunch of deer over in this
basin or on that ridge.

The most of the deadfalls set I had not covered so to keep the snow
off. A good many of them had snowed under, so I did not care how soon
we broke camp and went home. Deer were quite plentiful, and we could
find them nearly every day, when we would get a move on, so we
continued to stay day after day, and putting in about one-half the
time hunting and the other half telling what we would have done if
there had not been so many "ifs" in the way.

I would usually shape my course in hunting so as to come around where
some of the deadfalls were and spring them. One day I came to one
that was pretty well snowed under. I saw that a fox had done a good
deal of traveling around the trap and had dug in the snow some about
where I thought a marten would be, providing one was there. I kicked
the snow away, and to my delight and surprise I found as good a
marten as I had caught. I thanked the fox for the favor. I examined
all the traps then to make sure that there was nothing in them, but I
found no more marten.

We now began to get our venison into camp, taking turns to help each
other. I do not just remember how many deer we killed, but I think
that Charley and Will killed 15 or 16 apiece, and I killed either 11
or 12.

The boys said I had done pretty well considering the two bear and
otter, but when I went to the old elm and brought out the marten,
mink and another otter and five or six coon, the boys looked greatly
amazed and Will said, "I knew the fool was doing something besides
hunting," Charley said he thought he could smell something that
smelled like mink around the camp three or four times. I think I got
13 marten, 8 mink, 5 coon, 2 otter and 2 bears. As near as