We did not follow the doe far from where she lay behind the fallen tree, for we crossed the trail of a bear going west, and partly in the direction of that of the wounded deer, which continued to work her cards on us all afternoon without our getting sight of her. At dusk we trailed her into a small thicket at the edge of the farm owned by a man by the name of Foster, at the extreme head of the run.
As it was too late in the day to do any more with the old doe, we concluded to go to Mr. Foster's and stay over night, and take the trail early in the morning. It was snowing a little and we thought that the thicket would be an easy place to find our game, should it snow enough to cover the tracks. In the morning when we got up, we found six or eight inches of snow on the ground, that had fallen during the night. We had an early breakfast, and started out to again play the game with the broken legged doe.
Before we got to the edge of the woods, we struck the trail of some animal, that had gone across the field in the early part of the night before it had snowed much. We were not positive what sort of an animal it was, whether man or beast. The trail was leading straight across the field without a curve in it, and was making straight to a laurel patch that was one and a half miles away on the Taggart farm, less than a mile below Coudersport.
Mr. Dingman said that it was a bear. I admitted that it was a bear all right, but replied that I would say it was making for the Adirondack Mountains in New York, rather than the laurel patch on the Taggert farm. We did not have far to go to make sure, and a good part of the distance was across farms, so we concluded to hunt bear a while, and give the old doe a rest for a short time. As Mr. Dingman said, the bear made straight for the laurel patch.
There was not more than 15 or 20 acres in the patch, so we thought that we would circle it and make sure that the bear was still in the laurel. We found that the bear was there all right, so Mr. Dingman selected a place where he thought the bear would come out when he was routed from his nest, while I was to follow the trail and drive out the bear. I followed until near the center of the patch, when I came onto a small open place forty or fifty feet square. This open space was covered with a heavy growth of wild grass which partly held the snow from getting close to the ground, and I could see the trail of the bear through this grass and loose snow very plain until nearly the opposite side of the open space, and there I could see a bunch of snow. I was sure that it was the bear that made the bunch.
I thought the matter over for a minute, then concluded to back out and go after Mr. Dingman, and see what he thought would be best in order to make a sure thing of Bruin's capture. Mr. Dingman thought the best thing to do was to go up town and get plenty of help so as to thoroughly surround the laurel, and make sure of Bruin. I objected, as I thought it best to try our own luck, and if we failed we could still get plenty of help. We followed my track back to where I had turned, and concluded to both fire at the bunch at the same time, hit or miss as luck would have it. When we fired at the bunch there was a shaking of snow, and bruin rolled out but was unable to rise to his feet. On examination we found that one ball had entered his shoulder. It was a short job to get bruin out to the road, and take him up to town where we sold him to Mr. Stebbins, a merchant, and then we made tracks back to see if we could find the broken legged doe. We found by circling the thicket that she was there, and we had the good luck to get her. We drove her out, and thus ended one of the liveliest day's sport that we ever had.
CHAPTER XXI.
Dog on the Trap Line.
Now, we will say first that there is as much or more difference in the man who handles the dog as there is in the different breeds of dogs. I have heard men say that they wanted no dog on the trap line with them, and that they didn't believe that any one who did want a dog on the trap line knew but very little about trapping at best.