Being located well up at the head of the streams, it made it necessary for us to do a good deal of traveling to get from one stream to another where the water was of sufficient size to afford good trapping ground. Steel traps being none too plenty with us now, we started in to build deadfalls. The territory so far as trapping was concerned was left to Bill and I, and we took in the waters of Baley Run, the Portage, Conley Run and Hunt's Run, as well as several lesser streams. As the Baley was the farthest from our camp, Bill said we would put up the traps on that stream first. Bill said that we would go at it man fashion, for we would be compelled to get our grub from the trap line, for there was no chance to take a wood job in that section of the country. I suggested that we might get a job at the lumber camp, where we sold the deer the year before, and get a few beans and a little pork. I guess that Bill did not like the idea, for I remember he only gave me a grunt for an answer.
Say, boys, the question of pork and beans leads me to ask how many of you who have a fireplace in your camp have a bean hole? Now, Bill and I had one in our camp, and I tell you we thought it fine and we did it in this way. We dug a hole in one corner of the fireplace about two and a half feet deep and about eighteen inches in diameter, using the regular old style of bake kettle. This is merely an iron pot, with a close fitting flange lid so as to seclude all dust and ashes, and we used it in this way. We would first rake a good lot of live coals from the fireplace into the bean hole, having the beans already in the kettle. Then we would put the kettle down in the hole and rake the hole full of live embers, being careful to cover the hole over with plenty of ashes.
We prepared the beans about in this fashion: After washing we soaked them for about twelve hours. The water was drained off and the beans were then put into the kettle with the necessary trimmings, which consisted of a good chunk of pork put in the center of the beans, and two or three smaller pieces laid on top, a pinch of salt providing that the pork was not sufficiently salty. A spoonful of brown sugar or rather a little baking molasses and a little pepper. Now this kettle was allowed to remain three or four days in the hole without disturbing farther than to cover over occasionally with hot embers. You ask if beans are good baked this way--we guess yes. We have heard a great deal about the famous Boston baked beans, but we wish to say that they are not in it compared to beans baked in a bean hole.
Well, to get back to the trap line. We took the Baley waters first. This was about six miles from camp, and as it was still a little earlier in the season than we cared to begin to take fur, we would build the deadfalls and have them ready to set when we thought that fur was ripe enough to begin to gather. Bill used a good heavy axe, and would cut the dead pole and bed pieces and the stakes and fit them all ready to put up. He would then go on and select a place to build another trap and get the material all ready as before and then move on to the next place. I would follow him up and build the trap, make the bait pen and have the trap all ready to set when the right time came. The triggers we would make evenings in camp. We always used the three-stick trigger, for then we could adjust the trigger so that we were sure that the front legs of the animal were over the bed piece, when the trap was sprung. In that condition there was not get-away for the animal that tried to snip the bait. We would build traps on one stream until we had a plenty for that stream. We would take up another and put in a supply on that stream, and so on until we had gone over as much ground as we could work to good advantage.
All the time we were putting up these deadfalls we were keeping a watch out for likely places to set our steel traps for fox and other animals. After we had gone over the streams we built the necessary deadfalls in the dark, heavy timbered sections where we thought likely that there might be marten. As it was now well along toward the last of October, we set our bear traps on the different ridges in the sections where the chestnut timber was the most plenty. The chestnut crop was good and we knew that the first hard freeze would open the burs. Bill said we got to get a move on us from early in the morning until after dark when we would get into camp. We wished to get all the traps out now that we could. Later we were going to put in some time gathering chestnuts, as soon as they began to fall, as there was good money in gathering them. At this business there was lively competition with the squirrels, coons, bears and other animals to see which could gather the most, so naturally there is but a few days good picking after the chestnuts fall.
Bill said that we would be in a deal while the nuts lasted and we did, for we gathered several bushels. I do not just remember how many now, but that wasn't all we got while we were gathering chestnuts. One day we came to where a bear had been raking for nuts and as it was only about a mile from camp I said to Bill that it might be possible that if we would stay out and watch for Bruin as long as we could see to shoot, we might get a shot at the bear. Bill said that he preferred to let the traps do the watching. There was a little mist of rain falling, and just the right kind of weather for Bruin to be prowling around. Some way it seemed to me if we stayed and watched we would get a shot at a bear, but Bill had no faith and said that I would get good and wet for my trouble. I told him that if he would take what nuts I had gathered along to the shanty, I would stay and watch awhile at least. Bill agreed, and said that he would have a hot supper ready for me when I came to camp. I suggested to Bill that he have the frying pan hot when I got there, for I would bring in some bear meat for supper. Bill said that I need not bother to skin his, as he would eat his hair and all.
As soon as Bill was gone I selected a point where I could see down the hill, as well as over a good stretch of the top of the ridge. I had only fairly picked my ground to watch when I heard the brush crack close to me from behind. My gun came to my shoulder as I turned in the direction of the noise, and there stood Bill a-grinning. I asked him what had changed his mind. He said that if I could stand it he could, so he stepped along the ridge a few yards and I leaned up against a large hemlock tree. He had scarcely taken his stand when all of a sudden I saw him begin to slowly raise his gun to his shoulder. I knew that he was about to shoot at something, but thought it must be a deer. I thought that I ought to shout and scare it away, for I thought that Bill had come back on purpose to beat me out of the sport, and I guessed right. Bill said after he had started to camp it seemed to him that he had done wrong in leaving me to watch alone, and that I would kill a bear. So he turned back and got there just in time so as not to frighten the bear away, as well as to shoot it, which was a yearling and weighed about 125 pounds, with a fine pelt.
Bill apologized for the little trick. Said he would never do anything of the kind again. He never did. A good reason being that another opportunity never occurred. But later I will tell how I got the laugh on Bill. The next morning Bill took the saddles of the bear to Emporium and sold the meat, but he said that bear meat was not at a premium in Emporium. I think he got about $6.00 out of the saddles. While Bill was gone to Emporium I took two bear traps and went on to a ridge where I thought would be the most likely place to catch a bear, as there was considerable beach timber on that ridge in places. Beach nuts last long after chestnuts are gone, and bear would be likely to work in this timber. As we had not got all of our small traps out yet, Bill said that if I would finish setting the rest of the small traps, he would put in the most of his time hunting deer, as the leaves were now pretty well off from the undergrowth, so that the woods were now quite open. This I agreed to, as I knew Bill to be a good deer hunter, while I was a little skeptical as to some of his trapping methods.
Well, as the busy season was with us now, it was an early breakfast and a late supper day after day. Yet we were able to keep up the pace from the natural stimulating desire for sport, being anxious to know what the results of the next day would be. We were having the usual success of the average hunter and trapper who, as Bill said, if willing to get a move on, our supply of meat and game was never lacking, for I always shot at small game when hunting deer. Bill said that he did not like to come into camp empty handed, so he would shoot a grouse or a squirrel whenever a chance occurred. We had no snow up to this time, so that deer hunting was a little dull, and Bill said that he would take a line of traps, either on Baley Run or on the Conley, as I liked. I said, take your choice, Bill, so he said he would go to Conley Run, which was a little farther from camp than the Baley Run, and one or two more bear traps than on Baley Run.
I found a coon or two, and I think I got a fox and one marten, but no mink or other furs. I found that a bear had been to one trap and torn down the bait pen and taken the bait, but left the trap unsprung. I knew that he would cut the same trick again, if I set the trap there, so I bent over a small sapling and hung the carcass of a coon on it for a bait. The carcass hung four or five feet from the ground.