The Opelousas courier., 1900-02-24
BEHIND II WINDFALL.
BY E. w. Frentz.

OF the Maine Wilderness lies a small
and lonely lake. Miles of rough coun
try separate it from the nearest rail
road, and not even the lumberman ha
disturbed its solitude or married it
natural beauty. On every side bu
one the great woods come down to tn
waters edge, and trees which hav'
been reflected in this primeval miro
for a hundred years, ct length bur,
their old bones in the familiar depths
But on the western side Of the LAX.
is q swale, with clumps of alders ant
naples, and the shore itself is a sandy
beach, on which, early in the morn,
ing, there will be great ox-like tracks
SO fresh that the water has not yet
filled them; and smaller footprints,
like those of sheep; and other tracks
that make III think q man has
walked there barefoot; and still others
again-great round ones-which sug
gest that the man had o dog with him.
To the shore of this lake, one day
in midsummer, came Enoch Mitchell,
o climber CRUISER" and it was these
signs of moose and deer and bear and
lynx 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 q tight log camp, the winters stock
of provisions laid in and the traps ont
"a line toward the mountain for
sable and fisher, a line for mink and
otter along o small stream near the
cabin, and a few isolated traps at like
~ places along the lake shore.
For two or three weeks nothing in
terrupted the routine of making
~stretchers, running the line," skin
ming the catch and curing the pelts.
Joe did the cooking, washed the dishes,
cut wood and built and tended the
fires.
But one day toward the end of No
vember Mitchell started to visit some
traps at the base of the mountain, six
miles away. The trail was harder
than he had expected to find it, and
the necessity of repairing a deadfall
delayed him considerably, SO that the
end of the short day found him still a
good way from camp. In the dusk he
missed his footing on the log which
spanned Five Mile brook, and 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 q man with the agae.
The next morning he was too stiff and
sore to leave the cabin.
you'll have to look after my traps
for a day or two" he said to Joe.
you'd better go down along the out
let this morning to the bear traps I
set Tuesday. The first one is right
behind a big spruce windfall. i cut
ont some branches and left the log
acros the trail. The other oneais
half a mile OF SO farther down the
trail, and set the same way, behind q
windfall."
There's big holes in both of my
moccasins," said Joe, obviously.
.Take my larigans, then. You can
put on some extra stockings if they're
too big"
Joe started about 9 o'clock. The
'1arrigans"- heavy m~occasins with
legs reaching nearly to the knee
we're large enough to make four pairs
OF stockings q necessity; but the tenn
perature was auch that comfort would
have been satisfied with less.
Some matches, q lite bread and
cheese, q skinning knife and his rife
were Joe's equipment.
1t was o clear, still morning. Not
q sound broke the silence except the
Of the snow underfoot and
now and then the rapping Of a wood
pecker; but all around were signs of
that abundant life of the wilderness
which nature shows freely enough to
her intimates. The sn.w was criss&
crossed with tracks. Here a rabbit
had jumped, there q fox had nosed
under the young spruces. Mice
an squirrels aud partridges had
wolked their intricate and Iacelike
pattern on the snowy fabric, and once
Joe Saw where d caribou had come tp
from the bog on one side and crossed
the ridge to the larger bog on the
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 lie looked through
the opening his father had 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 Oh, d stump
had been thrashed to pieces and scat
tered about, and d broad trail led away
down the old sstote road which Of
Tered the path Of least resistance.
The trap, according to the usual
practice, had been chained to q clog
or eight inches in diameter and
as many feet in length. cut from d
green tree, with the branches Topped
pH . foot or so from the trunk; and as
Zoe followed the trail almost on 4 rur.
be gathered a new sense Of tie
strength Of the game he was PURSUING.
When the bear had found lie could
not free himself lie had started on the
Jump. and IN several places The clog
bad been lifted entirely free Of the
ground and .erked bodily through tie
In q little while, however, the
pace and the weight had begun 10 tel.
md the bear had settled down to 4
walk. The clog had caught once or
vice hyt each time he had tlrashed
around sillhe hal freed IL.