The dogs were anxious to take the trail, but Uncle held them in to the laurels. They had not been gone more than ten minutes when the dogs began to give tongue like mischief. I could see that the dogs were coming towards the road and in about a minute saw the biggest cat that I had ever seen at that time, shinning up a large tree that was not further than fifty yards from the sleigh. The dogs were soon at the tree barking their best and in a few minutes I heard the crack of a gun and the big cat seemed to fly out into the air. I could hear the cat go threshing down through the limbs on the trees and the dogs doubled their howling and I could hear the men laugh. I called to the men to see if they got the cat. Uncle told me to watch the horses and they would soon be there, and they were soon in sight dragging a large panther instead of either a cub or cat. Uncle drove down to where Holman's path left the road to go down to his camp and we then drove back home. Uncle was greatly pleased over Perry's cat hunt as Mr. Nelson called it.
* * *
In or about the year '67 or '68, Uncle Horatio Nelson, whom I have spoken of before, had for years been accustomed to going to Edgecomb Place, later known as Cherry Springs, to hunt and trap. Wolves were then more plentiful than foxes are at the present time.
I will explain that Cherry Springs was simply a farm house built of logs. This house was located about half way through, or in the center of a dense forest of about twenty miles square. The Jersey Shore turnpike ran through this vast forest and the stage or any traveler going through this region were obliged to stop at this house to feed at noon, or to stop over night, this being the only house on the road.
From where this house was located there was easy access to the waters of Pine Creek, which flowed east, to the waters of the Cross Fork of Kettle Creek, which flowed south and to the waters of the East Fork of the Sinnamahoning which flowed west. There was no one living on any of these streams for many miles. This was the point where Mr. Nelson, or Uncle, as I shall call him, hunted for many years.
At the time I am writing of, it had been a noted place for many hunters to stop from all parts of the country. There were almost too many hunters stopping at Cherry Spring to suit Uncle as he was getting pretty well along in years and did not like so much company. I had been camping a greater part of the time for several seasons about five miles north of Cherry Springs and one day Uncle said, if I cared to, he would go on to Crossfork and build a cabin and we would hunt and trap, more particularly trap. This was satisfactory to me although I had a good camp where I was trapping and in a fairly good locality for game, but the Crossfork country was a little farther in the tall timber so I thought that the change might be a good thing.
About the first of October we took a team, went into the woods and cut out a sort of a turkey trail from the wagon road down to Boon Road Hollow to the Hog's Back branch of the Crossfork, where we selected a sight for the camp. We felled a large hemlock tree and cut off four logs of suitable length to make the body of the camp about ten by twelve feet inside. We worked them around in shape fitting the two shorter logs in between the ends of the two longer logs; then placing rafters at about half pitch, put on the covering, chinked and calked all the cracks and built a chimney of stones, sticks and clay and put in a door.
We were now ready for the trap line. We set the bear traps on different ridges where we thought would be the most likely places for bears to travel. Then we put out two lines of deadfalls for marten. We then took the different branches and spring runs, building more deadfalls for mink and coons, setting the greater part of our steel traps for foxes. After all the steel traps but three or four were set, Uncle said that if I would go down the creek and set the balance of the steel traps, he would go and look after the first of the bear traps that we had set. I set the steel traps for foxes and built one or two more deadfalls farther down the creek. I think that I found a mink and one coon in the deadfalls that we had set in that section.
I got to camp about dark but Uncle had not come yet. I hustled supper to have it ready when he came, but when supper was ready I could neither see nor hear anything of him. After waiting some time I concluded to eat and then if he did not come I would go in the direction he had taken as I now suspected that he had gotten a bear and was bringing in what he could carry and that I would meet him and help him in with his load. Before I started out to see if I could find him I gave several long and loud "coohoopes," but got no answer. I concluded I would fire a couple of gunshots and see if I could get an answer, but got no reply save the hoot of an owl.
I now began to feel alarmed, fearing that some misfortune had happened Uncle as he knew every rod of the ground in that section. I had no lantern so I made two good torches from fat pine, having a good supply in camp, and followed the stream until I came to a little draw where we had a bear trap set. This trap had not been disturbed, so I climbed the hill to the top of the ridge when I fired two more gunshots but still got no response. I was now thoroughly alarmed as I knew that a gunshot on the still night air could be heard a long ways from the high ridge I was on.