If you wish to avoid the dew of the morning, camp at the upper end of a carrying place, i. e., rapid, but if you wish to have a refreshing slumber camp at the foot of the rapid, have your head up stream and pointing to the north if possible.
Never push on and camp on the border of some small stagnant lake, merely to add a little length to your day's trail. Better camp this side and have living water for your cooking purposes.
If you were hunting in the fall in a beaver country and watching to shoot them in the evening:
Never, if it is a big lodge, fire at the first or even the second beaver that breaks water. If you do, good-bye to the others for that night. It is better to allow the first and second to swim away along shore to their wood-yards unmolested. The next to make its appearance will most likely be one of the old ones. This kill if you can, and then paddle slowly in the direction the first has taken. The chances are you will meet them coming back or see them ashore cutting wood.
See that your two or three traps are in good order, and leave the lake for your camp before darkness sets in.
Your camp should be half a mile away and to the leaward of the beaver lake.
In the spring of the year beaver begin to swim early in the afternoon and take to their lodge late in the morning. In the autumn when the nights are long they break water late and are not to be seen after sunrise next morning.
If you see two beaver at one time swimming and shoot one, leave it floating on the water. The chances are the second one will make a short dive, and you want to be ready with your gun when he comes up. I have often got one with each barrel this way.
By shooting in the evening and leaving three traps set I have cleaned out a lodge of seven beaver in an evening and a night, from 4 P. M. to 7 A. M. next morning, and this with only a boy of ten years old for a companion.
The hardest part was in packing them and my canoe out over five carrying places. But, oh! when the bunch was at the post what recompense, all those fine, rich furs and the luscious and sustaining meat, with a roasted tail now and again as a side bite.