CHAPTER VII.
My Last Hunt on the Kinzua.
As this hunt was about 1868, before there were railroads in this section, we went to Emporium, Cameron County, Pennsylvania, and there took the train to Kane, in McKean County, then by team and bobsled route to camp. This making the journey much farther, we concluded to go by wagon the entire distance, which would shorten the distance nearly one-half.
This time conditions were different than on previous occasion. While there were three in the party before and every one hunted on his own hook, this time I had a partner and we were to share alike in profit and loss. My partner's name was William Earl, and he had recently moved from Vermont, or, as he would jokingly say, from "Varmount." He was somewhat older than myself, and a man who was ever ready to carry his end of the load at all times.
We hired a team and took a full line of grub and the camp outfit, with about sixty small traps and eight bear traps. We went by way of Port Allegheny, Devils Blow and Smithport, taking three days to get to camp, as we had to cut out the road a good part of the distance of the last day's travel. They had just begun to operate in the oil industry in the neighborhood of what is now the city of Bradford, and as they used wood altogether for fuel to drill with, there was a great deal of wood being cut for the purpose. Bill, as my partner was familiarly called, used to say that if we could not get fat on venison and bear meat we would take a wood job, but we found plenty to do without the wood job.
On reaching the camp the first thing noticeable was that the old hollow elm that I had used for a dryhouse to hang up skins in, had met with foul play, for it lay on the ground, having blown down. This made it necessary to build a sort of leanto against one side of the shanty to hang up our furs, as we did not like to have them hung up in the shanty where they would get more or less smoked.
But the first thing we did was to enlarge the door, for it will be remembered that we were obliged to get down on all fours in order to get in or out of the shanty. As we had a good crosscut saw, it did not take long to enlarge the doorway so that one could go in standing up, man fashion. We next cut a window-hole large enough to take a single sash window. Then we replaced the chinkings that the porcupines had gnawed out, calked and mudded all cracks. When this was done, Bill looked it over and said, "By gum, don't it look like living?"
As it was only about the middle of October we went to work at once on a good supply of wood for the camp. We did not quit until we were sure that we had plenty to last the winter, for we intended to stay as long as it was either profitable or a pleasure. After the wood was cut and piled up near the shanty door, we next set the bear traps, as we had brought bait for the purpose.
After the bear traps were set we next looked over the deadfalls that I had built for marten the fall before, putting in a new stake where necessary. We also set crotches and laid poles on them, then covering with hemlock boughs to keep the snow from falling directly on the trap. We fixed up the two deadfalls I had made for bear, as we wished to get all the bear traps out that we could, as we had already seen several signs.