had passed the tree that was the cause of the bees dropping off all
at once.

Just below where Smoky was and a little up on the bank from the
hollow stood a large maple tree. I started to inspect the tree. Bees
were flying all about me and as soon as I was near enough to the tree
to see, I could see bees flying all about the tree, some forty feet
from the ground. I called to Smoky and told him that the bees were
treed in a large maple.

This was on the fourth day of November and was a very rare thing for
bees to be working at that time of the year in this section of the
country. This tree made the sixth bee tree that we had found while in
camp.

This ended our bee hunting and we now put in the balance of the time,
while in camp, with the traps. It will now be necessary to go back to
the 20th of October to a time that Smoky said was the biggest day of
his life.

On the 20th of October we started out to look at the bear traps with
little hopes of getting anything more than a porcupine. Up to this
time we had not seen any signs of bear, only what had been made
during the summer, where the bear had dug out woodchucks and torn old
logs to pieces in search of grubs, and where they had dug wild
turnips. These signs were so old that we had but little hopes of
getting a bear while in camp and Smoky was continually condemning the
country.

We went up along a hollow that led to the top of a high ridge where
we had a bear trap setting and where I thought was the most likely
place to catch a bear, but found the trap undisturbed.

We next crossed a narrow ridge where we had another trap. The trap
was set in a spring run and the banks on either side of the run were
quite thickly grown up with low brush. Smoky was in advance a few
steps so that when he came to the edge of the thick brush that grew
on the bank of the run, parted the brush and looked through at the
trap, he caught a glimpse of some black object moving in the run. He
quickly stepped back and held up his hand, his eyes sparkling with
excitement and he whispered to me, "By Moses, we have got him." Smoky
being given to much joking, I asked, "What have we got?" for I had
not heard any noise of any kind. Smoky said, "A bear, by long horn
spoon-handle." I stepped past Smoky and looked through the brush and
there was a large black porcupine moving about a little in the trap.

I stepped back and said to Smoky, "Well, shoot him." Smoky said, "No,
I will miss him. You s