epared the beans about in this fashion: After washing we soaked
them for about twelve hours. The water was drained off and the beans
were then put into the kettle with the necessary trimmings, which
consisted of a good chunk of pork put in the center of the beans, and
two or three smaller pieces laid on top, a pinch of salt providing
that the pork was not sufficiently salty. A spoonful of brown sugar
or rather a little baking molasses and a little pepper. Now this
kettle was allowed to remain three or four days in the hole without
disturbing farther than to cover over occasionally with hot embers.
You ask if beans are good baked this way--we guess yes. We have heard
a great deal about the famous Boston baked beans, but we wish to say
that they are not in it compared to beans baked in a bean hole.
Well, to get back to the trap line. We took the Baley waters first.
This was about six miles from camp, and as it was still a little
earlier in the season than we cared to begin to take fur, we would
build the deadfalls and have them ready to set when we thought that
fur was ripe enough to begin to gather. Bill used a good heavy axe,
and would cut the dead pole and bed pieces and the stakes and fit
them all ready to put up. He would then go on and select a place to
build another trap and get the material all ready as before and then
move on to the next place. I would follow him up and build the trap,
make the bait pen and have the trap all ready to set when the right
time came. The triggers we would make evenings in camp. We always
used the three-stick trigger, for then we could adjust the trigger so
that we were sure that the front legs of the animal were over the bed
piece, when the trap was sprung. In that condition there was not
get-away for the animal that tried to snip the bait. We would build traps
on one stream until we had a plenty for that stream. We would take up
another and put in a supply on that stream, and so on until we had
gone over as much ground as we could work to good advantage.
All the time we were putting up these deadfalls we were keeping a
watch out for likely places to set our steel traps for fox and other
animals. After we had gone over the streams we built the necessary
deadfalls in the dark, heavy timbered sections where we thought
likely that there might be marten. As it was now well along toward
the last of October, we set our bear traps on the different ridges in
the sections where the chestnu
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