Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-03-16
A HUNTERS LIFE,
rer's and Pleasures Of Hunting, Trapping and
Camping in Maine Woods @
r[From the Boston Herald.1 .i

capt Baker gave the last of series cd
lectures on woodcraft at Chauncy Hill
school recently A sketch thereof is an
pended: "Imagine yourself Trapping
Oft III the woods in the month of Deem
Der. There is foot of light snow on the
ground. You are just leaving camp in
the morning; you have another camp II
OF 10 miles away ON the mountains: YOU
have two lines of traps leading to this
camp; one goes to the right over the
! hardwood mountains, where there is
good ground for the sable and fisher.cat:
the other goes to the left up brook and
around small pond, where the otter,
beaver and mink work; then up another
brook valley to camp. You take your
axe, rifle, bag of bait anil lunch, and fol-
low the mountain line, while your part
ner takes the valley line. You both
expect to meet at the other camp before
dark. 1t begins to snow by 10 o'clock,
but your partner has no trouble i'm fol-
lowing the valley line He gets to
camp an hour before dark and cuts fhe
wood for the night, gets it in, builds a
lire. and gets supper, expecting to hear
you coming every minute, but things
have gone differently with you. There
is more snow on the mountain than in
the valley; the travelling is hard; the
traps want good deal of setting over
and fixing; a fisher has got into one of
them and dragged it off little way, and
it takes quite q while to find him. A.
light wind drives the fast-fa1ling damp
snow against the trunk Of the trees. It
sticks there, and by 2 o'clock you cam
not see the 'blaZes' on the trees until
you have brushed away the snow. You
find one, and then look ahead and make
up your mind which tree the next one is
on. You brush off the snow-there is
no blaze there. Then you go to the tree,
a little way to the right, and brush
again; no blaze there then you go to the
left and brush again; still no blaze but
you keep hunting, and, after a while you
lind 1t. Then, perhaps, you have to go
through the same manmuvre to find the
next one. This all takes time, and, be-
fore you are aware of it, it is growing
dark. You have lost the line altogether
now; you do not know whether it is to
the right or left of you; you know that
you are still long way from camp, and
you don't know the course, so your COM
pass is OF little use to you. You think
there is good chance of your having to
lie out, and you slip your hand into
your pocket to make sure that your
matchbox is all right, but your match
box is not there. It has slipped out of
your pocket in the berth the night be-
fore, and you have never realized
the Importance Of always being sure that
you had your matchbox before leaving
camp in the morning. Your situation
IS not pleasant now; the damp snow
though the day, together with the pers-
piratlon you have raised by your hard
walking, has wet your clothes through
and through. It has stopped showing
now. The wind has shifted around into
the northwest and is blowing gale.
The snow comes piling down from the
trees upon you. The fast flying clouds
look white and feecy, and you occasion
ally see cold-looklng star up through
them. The mercury is liable to creep
down to % or 80 below zero before morn
ing. 1t Is no use to think of lying out.
1t is-get to camp or die. You are strug-
Cling on through the snow and darkness
fully conscious Of your situation, when
suddenly your hear the dim report of
rifle, and, boys, you have no idea how
good the report of rife can sound, and
what change it can make in your feel
ings in an instant, until your hear it IN
der some such circumstances. Atfrst you
find yourself rushing on in the direction
from which the sound came, trying to
make yourself believe it was not the re-
port of rifle you heard; but you hear
it again. 'There, you say to yourself,
that's my old partners rifle, sure, and /
am all right once more You then fire
your rife to let your partner know that
he is heard, and then you pull out toward
camp again, guided by the occasional
report OF the rifle, and when you get
in sight Of camp, how good the sparks
look shooting out Of the smoke-hole The
white house at Washington never looked
more pleasant to an ingoing presi-
dent of the United States than the rough
log camp has to the hunter after such an
experience as this. The men who worked
the hardest to elect presidentwere new
| Ell thanked with more sincerity than the
woodman's partner is for just going up
into knoll and firing his rifle. The
finest dinner that was ever served, with
all it's roasts and wines, could not taste
half as good to those who were honore d
with it as the hunter supper of deer meat,
spider cakes-or fap-jacks-and black
tea, with neither milk nor sugar in it.
The finest bed that was ever made up
was never appreciated more than the
| hunters Dough bed and smoky wooden
| blanket. That's the way with woods
| life the harder the time the greater the
pleasure after it is over with. Suppos-
ing you boys, when you are camping out
in the summer, could go out any day
and catch all the fish you wanted, how
long would it be before you would not
care snap for fishing !? If you could
go out any night and shoot a deer, you
would never have touch of the buck
fever. II is the uncertainty of wood life
that makes men have a passion for it.
1t is the working for the game that makes
it worth having. 1t is the hard times
that make the genuine good ones, and
the head-winds that make us appreciate
the fair ones.'' @
/ f@ FiOhtinu Preachers - sis|