the crack rifle shot in the country. One
evening I tied two hills of corn together while father was milking and
when father started for the house his toe taught in the loup up in the
air went the milk down on the ground came Father with about twelve
quarts of milk running down his back.

This was enough for father he had ben out of patience with me many
times: but now this act provoked him so he ordered me away from home. I
had few clothes and no satched. I was the baby of the family, yet not A
very delicate sample of a baby. I had the fire burning for adventure in
my young bosom, I bade my mother good bye as I went to bed, she never
knew how long it would be till she kissed to sleep those black marbles,
as she used to call my eyes; I arose at about one oclock in the morning
and roused up my brother picked up our kit and set out for the Twin
bridges of the Boardman fifteen miles away.

I was still in my ninth year and my brother was eleven, we camped up in
the swamp nearly all summer then in the fall hunted and trapped on the
Cedar river. When spring time came in we sold our furs for $200,00 and
took the Train for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

We stopped at the mining districts where there were scores of Cornish
Miners. There was a widow there with whom my brother lived and worked
all the time for about two years. He was quite a musician this widow
bought him a high grade Stewart Banjo and then she fell in love first
with his playing and then with his banjo and lastly of all with him.
Love stole my partner. I have had many but none like Lone Lee The
Mountain Musician. After loosing my Pal I began to learn to face the
wilderness alone. Nero my Dog, my associate from infancy was killed by a
wolf and I was left alone.

When whiteman seemed to fail fate overcame me in the form of an indian.
This indian was the famous Shopnegon. We trapped together on the Indian
river following down into lower michigan we also trapped the dead
stream, Ausable, Tobacco and into the Houghton lake country here
Shopnegon christened me as Black Beaver for I had actually trapped one.
this was the only Black Beaver Shopnegon had ever seen and the only one
I ever saw and I have seen some.

This was the winter of my tenth year I was big healthy and strong. I had
never been sick except having the Pneumonia and occasionally a bad cold.
Early in the spring we broke camp bid each other goodbye I loaded my
pack and furs weighing about forty poun