e we had been in camp. We had not made a large catch of furs but
I thought that we had done fairly well, all things considered (one
old played-out trapper and a kid who had never set a trap for
anything greater than a muskrat or a ground hog).

[Illustration: WOODCOCK AND SOME OF HIS CATCH.]

We had caught while in camp one bear, ten mink, eight coon and some
other furs as shown in the accompanying picture. After we left I set
a few traps about home, catching three fox and a few skunk and four
more mink, making fourteen mink in all. We got $4 and $4.50 for the
fox, and $4 to $6 for the mink, and from 80 cents to $2.25 for skunk,
and about the same for coon. We got 30 to 40 cents each for muskrats.

This will about complete the story of my trapping for the season of
1908. I am sorry that I am no artist, as I could have sent some fine
pictures, consisting of the bear in trap, as well as many other
animals in traps, and other pictures that would have been interesting
had I been able to take them at the right time and place.

CHAPTER XVI.

Hits and Misses on the Trail.

Many years ago when deer were plenty in this section of the country
(North Central Pennsylvania) and dogs were allowed to run deer at
their will, there being no restriction by way of law against hounding
deer, I started from the house about 10 o'clock in the morning to go
to some traps that I had set for mink along the creek in a swamp not
far from our place. There was an old road or path that led from the
wagon road down through the swamp to the creek. Along this path it
was thickly grown up with laurel and other underbrush that nearly
shut out the path.

I was accustomed to follow this path to the creek when going to look
after my traps. On my way up to the road I heard dogs barking as
though they were on the trail of something, but thought nothing of it
as it was a common occurrence to hear hounds running nearly every
day. I was following this path and had got within a few rods of the
creek and was just about ready to climb over a fallen tree that lay
across the path.

The tree lay up from the ground about a foot or so and it was perhaps
three feet from the ground up to the top of the log. I was just in
the act of climbing this log when a good-sized buck deer went to jump
the log also and we met, head on. I had no gun and if I had would
have had no time to use it. I seized the deer by the horns and forced
him back from the log with a start