Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1900-01-24

and lonely lake. Miles of rough coun-
TRY separate it from the nearest rail-
road, and not even the lumberman has
disturbed its solitude or marred its
natural beauty. On every side but
one the great woods ceme down to the
waters edge, and trees which have
been reflected in this primeval mirror
for hundred years, at length bury
their old bones i'll the familiar depths. :
- But on the western side of the lake
is swale, with clumps of alders and
NAPLES, and the shore itself Is a sandy
beach, on which, early in the morn
ing, there will be great o1-like tracks,
80 fresh that the water has not yet
filled them; and smaller footprints,
like those of sheep; and other tracks
that make. one think man has
walked there barefoot; and still others
again-great roand ones which sug
gest that the man bad dog with him.
To the snore of this lake, one day
nm midsummer, came Enoch. Mitchell,
a climber cruiser" and it was these
signs>of moose and deer and bear and
lyax which convinced him that he
could find no better place for his win
ter trapping.
By the middle OF October he and
his son Joe were comfortably settled
in tight log camp, the winters stock
of provisions laid in and the traps ont
"a 6ne stcward the mountain for
sable and fisher, a line for mink and
otter along, ,alsmall stream near the
cabin, and afewsssolnted a traps at like
~ places along the lake shore.
For two or three weeks nothing in
corrupted the routine of making
streteAers, running the line" skin
ming the catch and curing So.
Jos did the cooking, washed ''sa !.>scs,
cntwood and built and :sn,'eG 'he
fires.
But one day toward the soa u
wander Mitchell started II y
ssa the base OF the nc
miles away. The trail
than he had expected to
thu necessity Of repairing 1
delayed him considerably, Sc
end of the short day found M. s-,, :
good way from camp. In.ts 0Esl M
missed his footing on the log which
spanned Five Mile brook, aud was
plunged into the icy water to his arm
pits. He pushed on as fast as possible
after his ducking, but before he got
home he was chilled to the marrow
and shaking like man with the ague.
The next morning he was too stiff and
sore to leave the cabin.
t'You'll have to look after my traps
for day. or two," he said to Joe.
<eYou'd better go down along the out
let this morning to the bear traps I
set Tuesday. The first one is right
behind big spruce windfall. I cut
out some branches and left the log
across the trail. The other one is
half mile or so farther down the
trail, and set the same way, behind a
windfall."
ssThere's big holes in both of my
moccasins," said Joe, obviously.
''Take my larigans, then. You can
puto some extra stockings if they're
too big"
Joe started about 9 o'clock. The
'1arrigans" heavy moccasins with
legs reaching nearly to the knee
were large enough to make four pairs
Of stockings necessity; but the tenn
perature was such that comfort wonld
hardly have been satisfied with less.
Some matches, little bread and
cheese, skinning knife and his rifle
were Joe's equipment.
It clear, still morning. Not
sound broke the silence except the
crunching of the snow underfoot and
now and then the rapping of wood
pecker; but MI around were signs of
that abundant life of the wilderness
which nature shows freely enough to
her intimates. Tho snw was criss-
crossed with tracks. Here rabbit
had jumped, there fox had nosed
about under the young spruces. Mice.
and squirrels and partridges had
worked their intricate and lacelike
pattern on the snowy fabric, and once
Joe saw where caribou had come up
from the bog on one side and crossed
the ridge to the larger bog on the
other.
But these were everyday matters,
and the boy noticed nothing which he
considered worth much attention
until he reached the spruce windfall
behind which the first bear trap had
been set. When be looked through
the opening his father Ind cut in the
branches his pulse leaped. The earth
and dead leaves on the other side were
plowed up and ground into the snow,
branches were broken of, stump
had been thrashed to pieces and scat
tered about, and broad trail led away
down the old ,'tote road," which Of
fered the path of least resistance.
The trap, according to the usual
practice, had been chained to a clog
seven or eight inches in diameter and
as many feet in length, cut from
green tree, with the branches Topped
off aifoot or so from the trunk; and as
Joe followed the trail almost on rur,
he gathered o new sense of the
strength Of the game he was pursuing.
When the bear had found he could
not fres himself. he had started on the
Jump, and in several places The clog
had been lifted entirely free of the
ground and jerked bodily through the
air. In q little while, however, the
pace and the weight had begun to tell,
and the bear had settled down to
walk. The clog had caught once or
twice, but each time he had thrashed
around till be had freed it.
With his eyes fixed on the trail, Joe