with us we went to camp and early the next morning we
took two traps and went to this place and set them.

We put in that day finishing the camp, putting in the door and fixing
the chimney to the fireplace and calking all the cracks between the
logs and mudded tight between the logs and all the joints. Now the
camp being completed we began setting the bear traps. The old horse
was taken onto a chestnut ridge and shot, cut up into small pieces
suitable for bear bait, and hung up in small saplings such as we
could bend down. After the bait was fastened to the tree we let it
spring up so as to keep it out of the reach of any animal until we
had a trap set.

The way Mr. Harris set a bear trap was to build a V shaped pen about
three feet long and about the same in height, place the bait in the
back end of the pen and set the trap in the entrance. We had eleven
bear traps and after they were all set on different ridges where
bears were most likely to travel, we began the work of setting the
small traps which was not a long job, as we had only about forty.

The next morning Mr. Harris said that I had better go down and see if
the traps we had set had been disturbed and he said that he would
rest while I was gone.

When I came in sight of the traps I could see a fox bounding around
in one of the traps. I could see on looking at the trap we had placed
across the creek that the drag had been moved closer to the log but I
could see nothing moving. I cut a stick and killed the fox when I
crossed over to see what was in the other trap and to my disgust
there was a skunk. I was not particularly in love with skunks in
those days, for while they scented just as loud at that time as now
they were vastly lacking in the money value. I took hold of the clog
and carefully dragged the skunk to the creek and sank him in the
water. I now went back to the other side of the creek and set the fox
trap and when I had the trap set the skunk was good and dead. I reset
the trap and took the fox and skunk to camp without skinning. When I
got to camp I found Mr. Harris busy making stretching boards of
different sizes for different animals from shakes that we had left
when covering the roof. Mr. Harris laughed and said that he knew that
we would need them when I got back. The fox and skunk were skinned,
stretched and hung up on the outside of the gable of the shack, and
that was the starting point of our catch of the season.

We set the most of ou