Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper Part 18

We went inside and the dog started to follow, when his master in a harsh voice said "get out of here." I said, "Where do you expect the dog to go?" I then took an old coat that was in the camp, placed it in a corner and called gently to Pont, patted the coat and told Pont to lay down on the coat which the dog did. I patted the dog, saying, "that is a good place for Pont," and I can see that wistful gaze that dog gave me now. After we had our supper I asked my partner if he wasn't going to fix Pont some supper. "Oh, after awhile I will see if I can find something for him." I took a biscuit from the table, spread some b.u.t.ter on it, called the dog to me, broke the biscuit in pieces and gave it to the dog from my hand, then I found an old basin that chanced to be about the camp and fixed the dog a good supper.

After the dog had finished his supper I went to the coat in the corner, spoke gently to Pont, patted the coat and told Pont to lay down on the coat. That was the end of that, Pont knew his place and took it without further trouble.

The next morning when we were about ready to start out on the trap line I asked pard what he intended to do with Pont. He said that he would tie him to a tree that stood against the shanty close to the door. We were going to take different lines of traps. I said, "What is the harm of Pont going with me?" "All right, if you want him but I don't want any dog with me." I said, "Am (that was pard's given name, for short), I do not believe that dog wants to go with you any more than you want him." Am's reply was that he guessed he would go all right if he wanted him. I said, "Am, just for shucks, say nothing to the dog and see which one he will follow." So we stepped outside the shack and the dog stood close to me.

I said, "Go on Am, and we will see who the dog will follow." He started off and the dog only looked at him. Am stopped and told the dog to come on. The dog got around behind me. A said, "If I wanted you to come you would come or I would break your neck." I said, "No, Am, you won't break Pont's neck when I am around, it would not look nice."

I started on my way, Pont following after I had gone a little ways. I spoke to Pont, patted him on the head and told him what a good dog he was. He jumped about and showed more ways than one how pleased he was. He showed plainly the disgust he had for his master.

It so happened that the first trap that I came to was a trap set in a spring run, and it had a c.o.o.n in it. I allowed Pont to help kill the c.o.o.n, and after the c.o.o.n was dead I patted Pont and told him what great things we had done in capturing the c.o.o.n, and Pont showed what pride he took in the hunt, so much so that he did not like to have Am go near the pelt. I saw from the very first day out that all Pont needed was kind treatment and proper training to make a good help on the trap line.

I was careful to let him know what I was doing when setting a trap, and when he would go to smell at the bait after a trap had been set, I would speak to him in a firm voice and let him know that I did not approve of what he was doing. When making blind sets, I took the same pains to show and give him to understand what I was doing. I would sometimes, after giving him fair warning, let him put his foot into a trap. I would scold him in a moderate manner and release him. Then all the time when I was resetting the trap I would talk trap to him, and by action and word, teach him the nature of the trap. Mr.

Trapper, please do not persuade yourself to believe that the intelligent dog cannot understand if you go about it right.

In two weeks Pont had advanced so far in his training that I no longer had to pay any attention to him on account of the traps and the third day that Pont was with me he found a c.o.o.n that had escaped with a trap nearly two weeks before. My route called me up a little draw from the main stream, and I had not gone far up this when Pont took the trail of some animal and began working it up the side of a hill. I stood and watched him until the trail took him to an old log, when Pont began to snuff at a hole in the log, and he soon raised his head and gave a long howl, as much as to say "he is here and I want help." After running a stick in the hole I soon discovered that the log was hollow. I took my belt axe and pounded along on the log until I thought I was at the right point and then chopped a hole in the log. As good luck would have it, I made the opening right on the c.o.o.n, and almost the first thing I saw on looking into the log was the trap. Pont soon had the c.o.o.n out, and when I saw that it was the c.o.o.n that had escaped with our trap, I gave Pont praise for what he had done, petting him and telling him of his good deed, and he seemed to understand it all.

Not long after this Am came into camp at night and reported that a fox had broken the chain on a certain trap and gone off with the trap, saying that he would take Pont in the morning and see if he could find the fox. In the morning when we were ready to go Am tried to have Pont follow him but it was no go, Pont would not go with him.

Then Am put a rope onto him and tried to lead him but Pont would sulk and would not be led. Then Am lost his temper and wanted to break Pont's neck again. I said that I did not like to have Pont abused and that I would go along with him. When we came to the place where the fox had escaped with the trap Am at once began to slap his hands and hiss Pont on. Pont only crouched behind me for protection. I persuaded Am to go on down the run and look at the traps down that way while Pont and I would look after the escaped fox.

As soon as Am was gone I began to look about where the fox had been caught and search for his trail, and soon Pont began to wag his tail.

I began to work Pont's way and said, "has he gone that way?" Pont gave me to understand that the fox had gone that way and that he knew what was wanted. The trail soon left the main hollow and took up a little draw. A little way up this we found where the fox had been fast in some bushes but had freed himself and he had left and gone up the hillside. Pont soon began to get uneasy, and when I said, "hunt him out," away he went, and in a few minutes I heard Pont give a long howl and I knew that he had holed his game. When I came up to Pont he was working at a hole in some sh.e.l.l rocks. I pulled away some loose rocks and could see the fox, and we soon had him out and Pont seemed more pleased over the hunt than I was. There was scarcely a week that Pont did not help us out on the trap line.

Not infrequently did Pont show me a c.o.o.n den. I had some difficulty in teaching Pont to let the porcupines alone, but after a time he learned that they were not the kind of game that we wanted, and he paid no more attention to them.

I have had many different dogs on the trap line with me. I can say that to any one who can understand "dog's language," has a liking for a dog and has a reasonable amount of patience and is willing to use it, will find a well trained dog of much benefit on the trap line, and often a more genial companion than some partners. But if one is so const.i.tuted that he must give his dog a growl or a kick every time he comes in reach, and perhaps only give his dog half enough to eat and cannot treat a dog as his friend, then I say, leave the dog off the trap line.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOODc.o.c.k AND HIS OLD TRAPPING DOG PRINCE.]

CHAPTER XXII.

Two Cases of Buck Fever.

I have heard many hunters say that they had never had a case of buck fever, and that they could shoot at a deer with as little emotion under all circ.u.mstances as they could at a target. Now this is not the case with me, for the conditions under which I am working makes all the difference imaginable with my nervous system. I never saw but one place that I did not get the buck fever when deer hunting and that was in Trinity and Humboldt counties, California. There I saw deer so thick and tame that it was no more exciting than it would be to go into a drove of sheep in a pasture and shoot sheep. If by chance you failed to hit the deer the first shot it was only a matter of a few minutes when you would have another opportunity to kill your deer. So there was no cause to get the fever, but such has not been the case in Eastern States, for many years at least.

About 1880, a man by the name of Corwin and I were camping on the Jersey Sh.o.r.e turnpike in Pennsylvania. We had just gone into camp and as I usually make it a point to first get plenty of wood cut for the camp at night, so that when I come home in the evening I will not have to go out and cut wood, I had been cutting wood and fixing up all day until four o'clock in the afternoon, when I suggested to Mr.

Corwin that we go out and see if we could find some signs and locate the deer so that we would know where to look for them early the next morning. We followed down a ridge for some distance without seeing any signs of deer but about the time that it was getting dark so that we could not see very good and we were about to go to camp, we came onto a trail of a number of deer. As it was so dark we left the trail and went to camp being careful not to start or alarm the deer. The next morning when we got up we found that a snow had fallen of some 8 or 10 inches and knowing that this snow would cover the trail of the deer so deep that there would be no following it until we could start them out of their beds, we concluded that one of us should go down the ridge opposite or west of the ridge where we had found the trail of the deer. It was decided that I should take the ridge opposite where the deer were thought to be, and Mr. Corwin was to warn me by firing two shots in rapid succession if he started the deer without getting a shot at them.

I was familiar with the woods and knew about where the deer would run when started up from any particular point. I had gone down the ridge until I thought that I was below the point where the deer would have crossed had they done so during the night, or if Mr. Corwin should start them. I had neither heard anything from Mr. Corwin nor seen anything of the deer trail. I had given up hope of Mr. Corwin starting the deer so they would be likely to come my way.

I had struck the trail of a single deer that was going down a short sawtooth point or a short spur of the main ridge. The track had been made during the night when it was still snowing and in some places it was hard to follow the trail owing to so much snow falling. The track led down this spur in the direction of low hemlocks. I was working my way very carefully thinking that the deer had gone down into those low hemlocks to get shelter from the storm and were lying down in the thicket. The thicket was just over a little cone or ridge so that I could not see the surface of the ground and I was dead sure that I would catch my game lying in his bed.

In a moment a dozen deer came into sight as suddenly as though they had come up out of the ground and I was suddenly taken with one of the worst fevers that any man ever had. I at once began firing into the bunch. The deer seemingly did not notice the report of the gun but kept steadily on their trail. I knew the condition I was in and that I was shooting wide of the mark. I then singled out one of the largest deer, a good sized buck, and tried to pick out a spot on the back of his shoulders as though I was shooting at a target. I could not keep the gun within range of the deer by ten feet, so when I thought the gun had jumped into line, I pulled the trigger. The deer made no alteration in its course or speed but kept steadily bounding along. The deer were not more than forty yards from me. I dropped on one knee and leaned the gun across my knee, grabbed a handful of snow and jammed it into my face, then placed the gun to my face and began firing at the deer again with no better results.

When the bunch of deer were nearly a hundred yards away and they had all pa.s.sed over the brow of the hill, except one large doe that was a little behind the rest, the fever left me as suddenly as it came on.

I pulled the gun onto her and fired. She staggered, gave a lunge down the hill and fell dead. I could have told within an inch of where the ball struck her before I went to the deer. I could not have told within fifty feet of where my other shots went.

I followed my drove of deer a short distance to make sure that I had not wounded any of them and then I dragged the doe down into the hollow to dress and hang up. Pretty soon Mr. Corwin came to me and seeing only the one deer asked me if that was the only one I had killed with all that shooting. Mr. Corwin said that he had counted nine shots that I had fired. When I told him the story he had a hearty laugh of half an hour and said that I was lucky that I did not die in a fit.

Now boys, you who have never had the buck fever can laugh at me all you like, but those who are over fond of the chase and get the buck fever will sympathize with me. Had I been expecting and looking for this drove of deer at the time instead of only one deer I should not have been attacked with this case of buck fever.

Now, I will tell you of another case of buck fever from a cause entirely different from that just related. I was following the trail and there was just enough snow on the ground to make the best of still hunting. The wind was blowing just strong enough to make a noise in the tree tops overhead to drown any noise that the hunter might make by stepping on a dry limb, and every once in a while there would come a snow squall that would be so dense that you could see scarcely fifty feet.

I had trailed the doe along the side of the hill for some distance.

She was feeding alone and I was working along very carefully, keeping along the ridge several yards above the trail, to always be on advantage ground. I had not seen the trail of any other deer during the morning although it was in the height of the mating season, or as us common folks call it, the running season. I was trailing the doe along through a small basin where the timber was nearly all hardwood, beech and maple, and the woods were very open. I was quite positive that the doe was not far in advance for she had just been feeding on some moss from a limb that had blown down from a tree and the tracks were very fresh. About this time one of those snow squalls had come up. I was standing by a large maple tree waiting for the squall to pa.s.s by so that I could look the ground over well before I went any farther.

After the squall had pa.s.sed I looked the ground over closely but could see nothing of my deer. Forty or fifty yards farther along the side of the hill and below me there was a very large maple tree which had turned up by the roots. This tree hid from view a piece of ground close to the log. I could see that the trail led directly up to the tree. I could see a slight break in the snow on top of the log that I took to be made by the leg of the deer in jumping the log. I could see nothing of the trail beyond the tree so I worked very cautiously along until I could see past the root of the tree and as I suspected, there stood my game with head down, apparently asleep and standing broadside to me. I drew the gun onto a point just back of her shoulders and let go and the deer dropped almost in her tracks.

I cut the deer's throat and began to skin out the foreparts. I had only partly gotten my work done when another one of those snow squalls came along. I was bending over the deer, busy at work when I heard a slight noise, and straightened up to see what had caused it.

I looked none too soon to save myself from a terrible thrust from the horns of a large buck deer, for as I straightened up the deer shot past me like a shot from a gun, barely missing me and landed some six or eight feet beyond me. I had stood my gun against the log 8 or 10 feet from me. I sprang for my gun but I was trembling so that I could do nothing and I could scarcely stand on my feet. The buck stood for a moment looking back over his shoulders. Every hair on his back stood up like the hair on the back of an angry dog and I well remember the color of his eyes which were as green as gra.s.s.

The deer stood and gazed at me for a moment then slowly walked off.

The deer had gone some distance before I could control myself sufficiently to shoot. The buck had followed the trail of the doe up to the fallen tree and had caught me skinning her and it angered him.

Instead of running off he was determined to attack me and the only thing that saved me from being severely hurt was my straightening up just at the right time to miss the thrust of the buck and the deer's missing me was what caused him to leave me.

This was the worst case of buck fever that I have ever had and I do not care to ever experience a case of that kind again.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Partner a Necessity.

As I promised to give some reasons why a partner is necessary, and as I have trapped many seasons both with and without a partner, I should know something about the subject. A writer, some time ago, in Hunter-Trader-Trapper said that it took some trappers fifty years to learn what others learned in a week. Now, I fully agree with this writer, for it only took me about three seconds to learn that a partner was necessary, and it came about in this way.

I had several bear traps set near what is known as the Hogsback on the old Jersey Turnpike Road in Pennsylvania. The traps were strung along the ridge that divides the waters of the East Fork and the West Fork, which are tributaries of the west branch of the Susquehanna River and were setting from one and a half miles to four miles of the wagon road, and about nine miles from any house.

The time in question was the last days of October or the first of November, and the day a very warm one for that time of the year. I had been walking very fast, in fact where the ground was favorable, I would take a dog trot. I wished to make the rounds of the traps and get out of the woods that day. When I came to where the second trap had been set, I found it gone, clog and all. The place where the trap was setting was in the head of a small ravine and near the edge of a windfall, just on the lower side of the bait pen, and but a few feet from it lay the partly decayed trunk of a large tree. I jumped on to this tree to get a good look down into the windfall to see if bruin was anywhere in sight. I had scarcely got on the log when I received a reception which I think was something equal to that the Russian Naval Fleet met with in the Corean Straits. I had jumped square into a colony of large black hornets, and they did punish me terribly in three minutes' time. My feet were swollen so that I was obliged to remove my shoes and my entire body was spotted as a leopard with great purple blotches and the internal fever which I had was most terrible. I thought that every breath that I drew was my last. I was two miles from the wagon road and nine or ten miles in the wilderness. No one knew where I was, nor where the traps were set.

I thought no more of the bear. I only thought of reaching the wagon road. I began one of the worst battles of my life, but after a struggle of three hours I got to the road more dead than alive. But here fortune favored me for soon after a man by the name of White (one of the county commissioners who had been in the southern part of the county on business) came along. He took me home where the doctor soon got me on my feet again.

I told my oldest brother where he would find the trap, so he took a man and team and went early the next morning and got the bear all right. It was four or five days before I felt able again to go into the woods and look at the traps, but when I did, I found a small bear, (a cub) dead and the skin nearly worthless. This was 45 years ago, but I am still working at the same old trade, in a small way.

At another time and previous to the time mentioned, I, with a partner, was trapping on the headwaters of Pine Creek. We had been in camp about a week, when one day we had been setting a line of traps about three miles from camp. It was in November and the weather was very disagreeable, yet we were hustling for we knew that the snow would soon be on us, and then we wished to put in all the time we could hunting deer.

On the day in question Orlando (that was my partner's name) long before noon was complaining of a bad headache, and said that it seemed as though every bone in his body ached. I tried to persuade him to go to camp but he insisted on setting more traps. About three o'clock in the afternoon he was obliged to give up, and said he would sit down where he was and wait until I could go further up the stream and set a couple more traps. I said no, we will go to camp, so we started. We were about three miles from camp, but Orlando could only go a few steps when he would be obliged to rest. He soon became so weak that I could only get him along by partly carrying him. He was several years younger than I, but he was somewhat heavier, so he was rather more of a load than I could well manage.

I kept tugging away with him, and about 9 o'clock in the evening I got him to camp, where I fixed him as comfortable as I could, then I began a race of about eleven miles to Orlando's father's house. The distance was about one-half of the way through the woods and it took me until 12 o'clock to make it, but we soon had a team hitched to the wagon and were on the way back to the camp where we arrived about 3 o'clock in the morning. We could only get within about one and a fourth miles of the camp with a wagon, so we had to leave it there and go on with only the horses. When we got to the camp we found Orlando no better, so we got him on to one of the horses and by steadying him the best we could, managed to work our way back home.

We arrived there about 8 o'clock in the morning and found a doctor already waiting.

To make a long story short, it is sufficient to say that Pard had a long run of typhoid fever, and if he had been in the woods alone he would have surely died. I could relate other incidents where a pard did come in very acceptable.

As it is a necessity to have a partner, it is also necessary to have a good one, for the successful trapper has no idler's job on his hands. You should always have a partner who is able to read and write and should have a pencil and paper in your pocket, for it often happens that you wish to leave a message at a certain place where Pard and you expect to meet on the trap line. Then each one takes a different line of traps, and circ.u.mstances has happened since you left camp in the morning that it changes the entire program. It also often happens that you get into camp at a different time than what you expected and wish to go out again and take up another line of traps, and you should try to keep one another informed as to about what section you are working in.

Always endeavor to carry out the plans as near as possible the way they were planned before leaving camp in the morning. Of all things, do not accept of a man who is lazy or void of manly principles as a partner, for sooner or later you will drop him. Then it will make no difference how much you have done for him or how much you have befriended him in times past, he will do you all the dirt he is capable of doing.

If you want to know all about a man, go camping with him. Probably you think you know him already, but if you have never camped on the trail with him, you do not. It may be that he is your near neighbor or he may have been a partner in business, but if you have not camped with him, you have yet to learn him. It is not a hard job to believe a man a good fellow when at home, but when you have camped with him on the trail, then you will know him. When your companion wishes to annoy any game, which you may find in your traps for the mere purpose of hearing the animal moan with pain; will shoot birds and animals just for the purpose of killing if you have a team with you, and your companion will ride up the steep hills where other men would walk; will neglect his beasts of burden in any way, this man you should never choose as your camping or trapping partner. But when you find one who will never wantonly torture a dumb animal and is kind to his beasts of burden, always giving it all the advantages and kind treatment possible, this man you needn't fear to accept as a trapping partner for in this man you will find "a friend indeed when in need."