"About one-half mile. Yes, I suppose he dragged that trap three or four miles to get that distance. Here we are, it will not be a long job to set that trap as he has not torn the bait trap down. Fred, you get the clamps from the knapsack, while I cut that bushy tree for a clog. Yes, we let those limbs stick out about ten inches so that they will catch in the brush and on logs, and that bothers, you see. Yes, those lungs and liver are all right for bait as long as it is fresh. A bear does not like tainted meat. Well, that is all right now, we will go to camp and get a bite to eat, and then pull for home and get the horse and wagon and come out and take the bear meat and the skin in. Yes, we always ship the saddles to New York, they bring a good price.
"Yes, it is more of a knack to stretch a bear skin right than any other skin. Here we are at camp again, we will eat a bite and then pull for home. Good bye, Fred, yes, you shall go again."
CHAPTER IX.
Bears in 1870, To-Day--Other Notes.
One not familiar with the conditions of a wild woods life would naturally think that bears would diminish in proportion to deer and wild animals. However, this does not seem to be the case. Forty years ago, trappers of bear were not as numerous as at the present time. People at that time, hunted more for profit than sport and their forte was the slaughter of deer. In those days it was nothing uncommon to see sleigh loads of deer pass every day on the way to market.
After the first tracking snows of the season, the deer killed in this county (Potter) were hauled by team thirty and forty miles to the nearest railroad station and shipped to New York and Philadelphia but this is not what we wish to write of. We only speak of this to show that the man of forty years ago was of the trail, rather than the trap line.
Forty years ago, the writer was acquainted with nearly every hunter and trapper who made a business of hunting or trapping in this and adjoining counties. Men who made a business of trapping bear as well as hunting deer could be counted on the fingers of your hands, and the grounds on which they operated were the counties of Clinton, McKean, Cameron and Potter.
The names of these men who perhaps were the most interested in bear trapping in the section above mentioned were, Leroy Lyman, Horatio Nelson, Lanson Stephan, Isaac Pollard, Ezery Prichard and one or two others, including the writer.
The traps mostly used were bear pens and deadfalls. It was considered a fairly good day's work for two men to build one good bear pen or two good deadfalls. Most bear trappers, however, had a few steel bear traps for it may be said that nearly every country blacksmith knew how to make a bear trap and how to temper a trap spring. This cannot be said of the average blacksmith of the present day.