s still snowing very hard, and after getting the bear down to
the hollow and near to what was called in those days a wagon road--a
near trail cut out through the woods--we went to the camp where we
had stayed over night and rebuilt the fire and ate a lunch. We had
not eaten anything since morning, not wishing to spare the time. It
was snowing so hard, and as we knew that we would not be able to
reach camp until well along in the night, we concluded to again use
the camp of the night before. We gathered a few more hemlock boughs
and made the shelter a little more comfortable and went to roasting
bear meat on a stick to help out the grub we had brought with us, so
that we could look further for the lame bear the next morning.

When morning came, it had snowed more than twelve inches, and as we
were satisfied that the lame bear would not leave the jam, we
concluded to go down the run about five miles to where a man lived by
the name of Reese. Arrangements were made with him to get the bear
down to his place where we could get it later. From Mr. Reese's we
went to camp and waited a few days for the snow to settle a little.
On the way back to camp we looked at two or three bear traps and
found a small bear in one of the traps, and the last bear that we got
during the season.

We now began to take in the bear traps as we came near one on the way
to camp. The snow was so deep we were obliged to reset the most of
the small traps, although we had when setting out the traps taken
every precaution to set in such places as would afford them all the
shelter possible. After tending all the traps again, we went once
more to see if we could route the lame bear. We spent two days
searching the windfall in every quarter, but were unable to find a
trace of the track. We were quite positive that she was still
somewhere in the jam, but the snow had fallen so deep that it had
completely obliterated all signs.

Two years later I was one of a party that killed a bear and captured
her two cubs. The old bear had one foot gone. I am quite sure that it
was the one that had escaped from our traps.

We now put in the time hunting deer and looking after the small traps
until about the first of January, when we pulled all of our traps and
went home. This ended my hunting with William Earl, one of the best
pards that I ever hit the trail with, or followed a trap line. Bill
left these parts and went back east to his native state, and after a
time I