CHAPTER XV.
Trapping and Bee Hunting.
Comrades of the trap line and trail, as every trapper and hunter likes to know what other trappers and hunters are doing, I will tell of some of my last season's (1908) doings. Having been somewhat relieved from my old enemy--rheumatism--I concluded to take a trip south and see if I could not find a place suitable to my liking where I might escape some of the rigorous cold of the Northern Pennsylvania winters.
I went first into Southeastern Missouri. Here I found land cheap, unimproved lands ranging from $3.00 to $15.00 per acre; also plenty of timber for fuel and building purposes; plenty of fish of various kinds, some deer, a few wild turkeys, no bear, some mink, plenty of raccoon, a few otter and fox; with minor other fur-bearers, which was all quite satisfactory to me, but I did not like the water.
From Poplar Bluff, Missouri, I went to Kenset, Arkansas, where I found the conditions as to the price of lands satisfactory, although the country was much less broken than Southern Missouri. As to water, well, there was water almost anywhere; in fact, you could hardly cross the streets without wading in water. The people who were natives of that country informed me that the water in the streets was not always so plenty, as they said that there had been very heavy rains of late. Here I found game of all kinds quite scarce, although I was told that southeast of Kenset game was quite plenty, including bear, deer, turkeys, quail, etc., and that mink, otter, coon, opossum, also a few wolves, were to be found. The water gave me the chills in three days, so I concluded to move to other parts of the lower St. Francis River, in Lee County. There appeared to be quite a plenty of mink, otter, coon and some bear, but the cane brakes were pretty thick in the bottoms.
I think that if one was well prepared for trapping, they could do fairly well in either St. Francis or Lee County. I went from Hanes in Lee County, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee. From Memphis I went to a town by the name of Shepard, on the Hatchie River, in Haywood County, Tennessee. Along the Hatchie River there were signs of otter, mink and coon quite plenty, and in some places the cane brakes were quite open. I liked the lay of the land here very well. It was just rolling enough to suit my fancy, but again I failed to find our cold, Pennsylvania spring water. From Shepard I went to Pickens, in Pickens County, South Carolina. Here I found fairly good water, but other conditions were not entirely to my liking.
While I did not have time to look up the game or rather the fur-bearers as thoroughly as I would have liked to, yet I saw considerable signs of mink and coon and was told that there were quite a number of otter in that section on some of the streams. From Pickens I bought a ticket to Columbus, Ohio, where I intended to stop over a day and call on the editor of the greatest of sporting magazines, Hunter-Trader-Trapper, but when I got to Columbus my courage failed. I was afraid that the editor would be too busy pushing the quill to bother with a lone trapper, so concluded to hasten back to old Potter, where chills, jiggers, ticks, fleas and poisonous snakes are unknown, and where the cold, sparkling spring water flows from the mountain side to your very door. Say, boys, you may think that I am stuck on the water question. Well, I am, and I have good cause to me. Only for spring water, I should not have been able to have made the journey which I am writing of.
For the past two years, barring the time I was south, I have drank from four to six quarts of cold spring water every twenty-four hours. I have got more relief from rheumatism than I ever did from all the rheumatism remedies that I ever knew of, and I have tried the most of them. I used all the salt in my food that I could to aid the desire for water, and took six drops of oil of wintergreen three times a day. Now, if any of the old trappers have rheumatism and the good spring water, I ask you to try it.
Well, after getting back home and resting a few days and the frost began to hit the pumpkin vine, I began to feel as I imagined that the wild goose does about their migratory time. At least I felt as though I should fly if I did not get into the woods. We were having splendid weather for camping, and the warm, dry, sunny days afforded splendid weather for bee hunting, and after the trap and gun then my delight is to trail the honey bee to his den tree.