I will now tell you about the first bear that I killed. I was about thirteen years old, and it was not so common a thing for one to kill a bear in those days as it is now (1904), for strange as it may seem, bears are far more plentiful here today than they were at that time.
Two of my brothers and three or four of the neighbors went into the woods about twelve miles and bought fifty acres of land. There was no one living within six or seven miles of the place. They cleared off four or five acres and built a good log fence around it. They also built a small barn and cabin. Each spring they would drive their young cattle out to this place, stay a few days and plant a few potatoes, and some corn. About once a month it was customary to go over to this clearing and hunt up the cattle and bring them to the clearing and salt them, then have a day or two of trout fishing, watch licks and kill a deer or two, jerk the meat and have a general good time.
I was allowed to go on one of these expeditions, and the first night the men watched one or two licks and one of the men killed a deer, but I had to stay in camp that night with a promise that I should watch the second night.
During the first night we heard wolves howl away upon the hills. The next morning the men talked very mysteriously about the wolves and said that it would not be safe to watch the licks that night, that no deer would come to the licks as long as the wolves were around. I took it all in and said nothing, but was determined to watch a lick that night. Finally one of the men, John Duell by name, said that I could watch the lick that he had and he would stay in camp. The one that I was to watch was only a short distance from the clearing. When the sun was about one-half hour high, I took the old shot gun, this time loaded with genuine buck shot and climbed the Indian ladder to the scaffold which was built about twenty feet from the ground in a hemlock tree.
I sat quiet until sundown and no deer came. I thought I would tie the gun in the notches in the limbs, which brought the gun in proper range to kill the deer in the lick, should it come after dark. I got one string tied around the barrel and the limb when a slight noise to my left caused me to look in that direction and I saw a dark object standing in the edge of the little thicket, which I took to be a black creature I had seen down near the clearing when I came to the lick. My thoughts were that I would tie the breech of the gun fast to the limb, and then I would climb down and stone the animal away, so I went on tying the gun fast. On looking up I saw that the supposedly black heifer had turned out to be a black bear, and that it was going to go above the lick and not into it. My knife was out in an instant and the next moment I had the strings that held the gun cut. I raised it carefully to my face and about this time the bear stopped, turned his head around and looked back in the direction he had come. This was my chance, and I fired both barrels at his head and shoulders, and immediately there was a snorting, snarling, rolling and tumbling of the bear, but the maneuvers of the bear was no comparison to the screams and shouts that came from me. I was still making more noise than a band of Indians when Mr. Duell arrived on the scene and took in the situation. The other men who were watching other licks thought I had surely been attacked by the wolves by the unearthly yell I was making and the whole party were soon on the ground. The bear was soon dressed and the men gave me the cognomen of the "The Great Hunter of Kentucky" and so ended the killing of my first bear.
I am still in hopes to take the pelts from one or two this fall and winter and later, I will tell of some of the incidents I have seen and experienced while trapping and hunting among them. Perhaps, how a brother of mine got a tenderfoot to ride the carcass of a deer down a steep and hard frozen mountain when there was about two inches of snow on would be interesting.
CHAPTER III.
My First Real Trapping Experience.
When I was about eighteen, I received a letter from a man by the name of Harris, who lived in Steuben County, New York, wherein he stated that a Mr. Lathrop had suggested me as a suitable party to go with him to the region known as Black Forest. This section extends through four counties, the southern part of Potter and Tioga counties, and northern part of Clinton and Lycoming counties, Pa. Every reader knows or has heard of the Black Forest region.