rt of a trap is quickly made, I do not like them,
as the bear will rub the fur madly in its struggles, and they are an
inhuman sort of an affair at best.

[Illustration: BUILDING A BEAR "LOWDOWN."]

To get back to my story, Charley and I did fairly well in catching
mink and marten, but the bear had either migrated or gone into winter
quarters. The coon had also gone into winter quarters. The snow was
getting quite deep as it was now past the middle of November, and it
now proved to be my luck to be left alone in camp. One night when we
were coming to camp, we had to cross a stream on a small tree which
had fallen across the creek. There were several inches of snow on the
log and Charley was carrying a small deer on his back. I was behind
him carrying the guns. Charley worked his way carefully across the
log but just as he was about to step off the log on the opposite bank
he slipped and fell striking his left leg across the log, breaking
the bone just above the ankle joint. Fortunately we were only a short
distance from camp so that Charley hobbled to camp, using his gun for
a crutch.

When we got in camp it did not take long to see that the bone was
broken. I fixed wood, water and food as convenient as possible for
Charley and took a lantern, a lunch in my pocket and started for
Alpena, reaching there shortly after daylight the next morning.
Engaging a team without any delay we started back to camp. Reaching
camp about three o'clock in the afternoon, we found Charley quite
comfortable and feeling quite chipper under the circumstances. While
the team was eating we fixed both blankets on the straw and a
mattress which we had brought for the purpose from town, and fixed
things as comfortable as we could. We were soon on our way back to
town, which we reached about midnight. The next morning the doctor
set the broken limb with but little difficulty.

After staying two or three days and making arrangements with a young
man to come to camp every Saturday and bring mail and word from
Charley, I returned to camp, where I found things all right. While
out to town I bought a pair of snow shoes. I had never used them, and
for the first few days it was who and who to know which would be on
top, myself or the snow shoes. I finally mastered them and found them
a great help in getting about in the deep snow. It kept me pretty
busy attending to the traps.

One night after Charley had been gone about three weeks, on nearing
ca