lost all trace of him.

CHAPTER XIV.

Hunting and Trapping in Cameron County.

It will be remembered that when Mr. Earl (or Bill, as I preferred to
call him,) and the writer followed the bear from the Kinzua in McKene
County, through Cameron County, that we saw signs of bear, deer,
marten and other game quite plentiful in the region of Baley Run,
Salt Run and Hunt's Run, and that we concluded to pitch our camp in
that quarter. As there were no huckleberries in the vicinity of our
homes, we decided to kill two birds with one stone, that was to pick
some huckleberries and build our camp for the next season's hunt.

Accordingly about the last days of July, we took a team and our
outfit for camp building and started for Hunt's Run by way of the
Sinnamahoning and Baley Run. At this time the country in that section
was an unbroken forest of pine, oak and hemlock with a goon
sprinkling of chestnut. As the saying was in those days, "God owned
the land in that section," so all we had to do was to go into the
woods, select our camp site and proceed to build. (Boys, let me stop
long enough to say it is different nowadays; you must go through a
whole lot of red tape and get a permit to camp and the permit only
lasts two weeks, when you must get a renewal.)

The site we selected for our camp was on the left-hand branch of
Hunt's Run. We rolled up the usual box log body, about 10 x 14 feet.
We put up a bridge roof, putting up about four pairs of rafters and
then using three or four small cross poles for roof boards. We then
peeled hemlock bark, making the pieces about four feet long, which we
used for shingles to cover the roof with. After the roof was
completed, we felled a chestnut tree which we split into spaults
about four feet long. With these we chinked all the cracks between
the logs, striking the axe into the logs, close to the edge of the
chinking and then driving a small wedge in the slot made by the axe
to hold the chinking in place.

Next we gathered moss from old fallen trees and stuffed all the
cracks, using a blunt wedge to press the moss good and tight. We then
begun on the mason work. We found a bank of clay that was rather free
of stones and made a mortar by using water, making the mortar about
as stiff as mortar usually used in house plastering. The chinking and
mossing had been done from the inside, while we now filled the space
between the logs good and full of mortar, or rather mud.

The next work