and a trapper would endure and call
it sport. It must have been nearly nine o'clock when I got to camp,
where I still found the hunting party. They had taken a part of their
outfit to their camp grounds and had worked on their camp until
nearly night when they returned to my camp to stay for the night and
get the balance of their outfit.

Well, I was pleased to find them still in camp for they volunteered
to go with me the next day and help me get the deer and bear out to
the road in return for venison and bear meat. This ended one of the
luckiest and hardest day's work that I ever did on the trail or trap
line.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A Mixed Bag.

I promised some of my old trapper friends back East, that I would let
them, who were fortunate enough to be subscribers to the H-T-T, hear
from me. I will say that this is a mountain region of the first
magnitude. A man that cannot mount a donkey and ride over a trail
where the river is hundreds of feet below, or as it looks to be
nearly under him, and the trail not more than twelve inches wide,
hewn out of the solid rock, he had best remain in the East.

This is a sportsman's paradise, and the trapper will find here prey
in the way of bear, both black and brown, fisher, mink, raccoon, fox,
otter, panther, or as the natives call them, mountain lion, wildcat,
skunk, civet cat and many other fur bearing animals and all quite
numerous. Deer seem to be very abundant. I counted thirteen in a lick
this morning, and it is not an uncommon thing to see from ten to
twenty in the licks at one time.

The fishing is said to be the best in the spring and fall. It is not
an uncommon thing to catch salmon, weighing from six to thirty-five
pounds, and as it is only thirty-five miles to the Pacific Ocean,
they are of the very best quality. Mountain trout are plentiful.

Another animal that is plenty is the mountain goat. Bear, mountain
lion, and other signs are as numerous as those of rabbits in the
East. I am not prepared at this time, to say how shrewd these animals
are to trap, but if they take bait as readily as they are reported
to, they must not be very hard to catch. There is a bounty of $4.00
on wolves and the writer has seen numerous signs of them.

Will say to my friends in the East that while on my way from the
coast to the ranch, a distance of only fifty miles, and the most of
the way over mountain trails, I stopped often to watch the deer
feeding along the side of the tra