he line and pinch a few
more toes.

CHAPTER II.

Early Experiences.

As I promised to write something of my early experience at trapping
and hunting, I will begin by saying that I am now living within one
mile of where I was born sixty years ago (this was written in 1904),
and that I began my trapping career by first trapping rats in my
father's grist mill with the old figure four squat trap. I well
remember the many war dances that I had when I could not make the
trap stay set; but I did not trap long inside the mill for father
also ran a blacksmith shop and always kept a good man to do the work
in the shop. I was soon coaxing the smith to make me a steel trap,
which he did. I now began catching muskrats along the tail race and
about the mill dam, but the spring on my trap was so stiff that when
I found the trap sprung or found game in it, I was obliged to bring
the trap to the house and have some one older than I to set it. Then
I would carry it back to the creek and set it. Well this was slow
work and I was continually begging the blacksmith to make me more
traps with weaker springs so I could set them myself. After much
coaxing he made me three more which I was able to set and then the
muskrats began to suffer. Let me say at that time a muskrat skin was
worth more than a mink skin.

Boys, I was like a man in public office, the more of it they have,
the more they want. So it was with me in regard to the traps, but I
could not coax the blacksmith to make any more. An older brother came
to my aid in this way: he told me to go to town and see the
blacksmith there and see if I could not sell some charcoal to him for
traps, and he, (my brother) would help me burn the coal. Now this
burning the coal was done by gathering hemlock knots from old rotten
logs and piling them up and covering them like potato holes, leaving
a hole open at the bottom to start the fire. After the fire was well
started the hole was closed and the knots smoldered for several days.
Well, the plan worked and by the operation I became the possessor of
five more traps. By this time the vicinity of the mill dam and race
was no longer large enough to furnish trapping grounds, and I
ventured farther up and down the stream and took in the coon and mink
along with the muskrat.

[Illustration: WOODCOCK, WIFE, SISTER-IN-LAW, RESIDENCE AND HIS DOG
MACK.]

We had a neighbor, Washburn by name, who was considered a great
trapper, for he could now a