, quail, ducks and wild
turkeys were too plentiful, while a good hunter could scarcely fail of
getting a standing shot at a deer in a morning's hunt. But, what use
could be made of fish or game in such a place? They were all half sick
and had little appetite. Mrs. Williams could not endure the smell of
fish; they had been cloyed on small game and were surfeited on venison.

My sporting ardor sank to zero. I had the decency not to slaughter
game for the love of killing, and leave it to rot, or hook large fish
that could not be used. I soon grew restless and began to think often
about the lumber camp on the Muskegon. By surveyors' lines it was
hardly more than sixty miles from Pete Williams' clearing to the Joe
Davis camp on the Muskegon. "But practically," said Pete, "Joe and I
are a thousand miles apart. White men, as a rule, don't undertake to
cross this wilderness. The only one I know who has tried it is old Bill
Hance; he can tell you all about it."

Hance was the hunting and trapping genius of Saginaw Bay--a man who
dwelt in the woods summer and winter, and never trimmed his hair or
wore any other covering on his head. Not a misanthrope, or taciturn,
but friendly and talkative rather; liking best to live alone, but fond
of tramping across the woods to gossip with neighbors; a very tall man
withal and so thin that, as he went rapidly winding and turning among
fallen logs, you looked to see him tangle up and tumble in a loose
coil, like a wet rope, but he was better than he looked. He had a high
reputation as trailer, guide, or trapper and was mentioned as a "bad
man in a racket." I had met him several times, and as he was decidedly
a character, had rather laid myself out to cultivate him. And now that
I began to have a strong notion of crossing the woods alone, I took
counsel of Bill Hance. Unlike Williams, he thought it perfectly
feasible and rather a neat, gamey thing for a youngster to do. He had
crossed the woods several times with surveying parties and once alone.
He knew an Indian trail which led to an old camp within ten miles of
the Muskegon and thought the trail could be followed. It took him a
little less than three days to go through; "but," he added, "I
nat'rally travel a little faster in the woods than most men. If you can
follow the trail, you ought to get through in a little more'n three
days--if you keep moggin'."

One afternoon I carefully packed the knapsack and organized for a long
woods tramp.