Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper / Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.

by E. N. Woodcock

Going by the way of Emporium in that county, we were compelled to stay there over night, the distance being too far to reach camp the first day. At Emporium we purchased what more necessaries we needed, that we had not brought from home. We reached camp the second day about 10 o'clock. When we came in sight of the camp, Bill was walking ahead of the team with an axe cutting out brush here and there as needed. All of a sudden Bill stopped, set down the axe and looked in the direction of the shanty. When I was close enough so Bill could speak to me, he said, "I be-dog-on if the wicky is not occupied." I asked, "What with, porcupines?" Bill's reply was that he had known porkies to do some dog-on mean work, but he had never known them to build fires.

I could now see the shack, and sure enough there was a little smoke curling up from the chimney. Bill said that he hoped that there was no one there that wanted to tarry long, for he was dog-on sorry if that wicky was large enough for two families.

We found the shanty occupied alright. There was a sack of crackers set on the table and a pot of tea set in the chimney and a couple of blankets lay on the bunk. After Bill had sized up the contents of the camp, he concluded that the occupants did not intend to stay long, judging from their outfit, but Bill was mistaken. Bill said that he would proceed to clean house at any rate.

We had taken in new straw for the bunk, so we threw the old boughs and the other litter outside and burned it and went in for a general house cleaning. Just before dark, two men came in great haste. One rushed into the shack and demanded to know what in h--- does this mean. Bill said, "nothing, just moving in is all."

Then the spokesman said, "Do you fellows pretend to own this camp?" Bill replied that we did, as we did some dog-on hard work building it at least. The one man continued to go on with a great deal of telling what he would do and what he would not, until we had supper ready, when we asked the men to eat with us. The man that had done very little talking readily consented but the other man was still inclined to bully matters, but he finally took a stool and sat up and ate his supper. After supper we learned that they were from near Wellsville, N. Y. We made arrangements for the men to sleep on the floor, or rather on the ground at the side of the bunk.

The next morning after breakfast was over, the man who proposed to run things to his own liking said that he did not see any other way but what we would all have to get along together the best way we could in the shanty. This was more than Bill could stand so he opened on the man and said, "See here, stranger, I am dog-on if a aint willing to do almost anything to be neighborly, but I am dog-on if it don't take a large house for two families to live in, and this shack is altogether too small."

It now began to look as though we were not going to be good neighbors very long, when the man that had but very little to say, up to this time, said, "See here, Hank, you know that this is not our shanty. I told you that some one would be here and want it," and he took his blankets, gun and sack of crackers and started off down the run. After the other man had done some more loud talking, he gathered up the rest of their plunder and started on after his partner with the remark that he would see us again. Bill replied that he would be dog-on pleased to have him come when we were at home.

We were a little afraid that they might return and do us some dirt, but they did not. They went farther down the run and built a sort of a shelter out of boughs and pieces of bark where they stayed about two weeks, when they went home, leaving the field to Bill and myself.

We put in two days cutting wood and calking and mudding the shanty wherever the chinking and mud had been worked out by squirrels and other small animals. As soon as we had this work done we put in our time setting our bear traps. We also built two bear pens. After we had the bear traps all set, we then began putting out small traps, setting the most of the small steel traps for fox and building more deadfalls and repairing those that we had made the year before for marten on the ridges, and along the creek for mink and coon.

After this work was done we gave more time to bear hunting. We had a good deal of freezing weather without much snow for tracking. Being very noisy under foot, we were compelled to hunt for several days by driving the deer, that is, one of us would stand on the runways in the heads of basins or hollows and in the low places on the ridges where it was natural for deer to pass through when jumped up. In going from one ridge to another, we would get a deer in this way nearly every day, and one day we had the good luck to get three bears while driving, an old bear and two cubs. We were also having fairly good luck with the traps.