Frank said that he would get between the logs and poke the coon out. I told him that he had better let me go, as I was afraid that he would take a hold of the clog and pull the trap loose from the coon's foot, but Frank grabbed a stick and jumped between the logs. He had hardly struck the ground when he gave a fearful yell and there was a spitting, snarling animal close at his heels. He scrambled out from between the logs, as white as a sheet. I then saw that it was a wildcat and a mad one. I cut a good stout stick and while Frank stood on the bank with his gun, I poked the cat from under the log by punching it, until Frank could see it enough to shoot it. We pulled the cat out from between the logs, took the trap from its foot, reset it and took the cat with our traps and went to camp, declaring in our minds that there was no other such mighty trappers as we.
Frank declared that he was nearly famished with hunger so we had supper and then skinned the cat. We did not sleep much that night as Frank had to tell me all about things at home. He also told me that pard was no better. Every time an owl would hoot, or a rabbit or porcupine or a mouse would make a noise in the leaves, Frank would give me a punch and ask what it was. Frank remained three days in camp and then he took the stage back home, that being as long as his parents would allow him to stay. I went to the road to see him off. When leaving he made many declarations that he would come back to camp, although he never did.
The snow now began to lie on the ground as it fell and it began to get cold at night. Coon did but little traveling and some way, after Frank had been over to camp and stayed those three days, I seemed to get homesick. I had not become expert enough to make a business of deer hunting and marten and bear trapping, so I sprung the deadfalls and took up the few steel traps that I had and began to take my furs and other plunder to the road to take the stage home. After going home I went to school for a few weeks.
I no longer remember how many coon, mink and other furs I caught, but it was quite a bunch for furs were very plentiful in those days.
CHAPTER VI.
A Hunt on the Kinzua.
Comrades, as I have not been able to trap any for the past two years--1905 and 1906--and as I have previously served for more than 50 years almost without cessation, along the trap line, I beg to be admitted to your ranks as one of the "Hasbeens."
I will therefore tell of one of my trips on a hunting and trapping expedition in the fall and winter of 1865-6, a party of two besides myself. My two companions' names were Charles Manly and William Howard. We started about the 15th of October for Coudersport with a team of horses and wagon loaded with the greater part of our outfit and went to Emporium, Cameron County, where we hit the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad. The only railroad that touched Northwestern Pennsylvania at that time. Here we took the railroad to Kane, a town in Southwestern McKean County, where we stopped one day and made purchases for three months' camping. We hired a good team here to take our outfit about seven or eight miles on to Kinzua Creek.
Almost the entire distance was through the woods and over the rock. There was no sign of a road only as we went ahead of the team and cut a tree or log here and there. The outfit was lashed onto a bobsled, and as we had bargained with the man to make the trip for a stated price, he did not seem to care whether there was any road or not, so that he got through as quickly as possible.