The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-10

will drop its foot on to the waiting trap nearly every time.
 It Is customary for the trapper to visit his entire line as often as once in three days going out from camp the first day, returning on the other line the second, and remaining in camp to COOK 1000 anu stretch the skins the third
 Before the pelts can be fitted for mar ket they must be scraped and hauled on over thin and wide strips of wood called stretchers, where they remain until the end of the hunting season, when they are packed on the sled. These stretchers are split from the trunks of cedar trees and then whittled into proper shape with a pocketknife.
 Meat for the Table.
 When not putting his peltry into shape for selling the trapper Is catching pick- erel. snaring rabbits, and trapping musk rats for bait and to supply his own lard
 CT. Owing to the long distance Of the
 haul very few supplies are carried into
 camp outside of salt pork and salt and
 pepper.
 Some take tea or coffee, though de- eoction of hemlock or cedar boughs makes a good substitute for the former, while
 shelled beechnuts pilfered from the stores of the chipmunks and roasted over the l coals make very palatable and nourish- | ing substitute for coffee The chief articles l of food are stews made from rabbits ana l muskrats and fried fish of various sorts. | Now and then wandering bear Is kill
 ed, and at times great store Of wild | honey is chopped from the trunk or I hollow tree. If a trapper feels like giving I himself treat he either makes a ball | of flour dough and fries it in salt fat as damper, or cooks an inspiring hoecake | among the ashes.
 | Knowing that his nearest human neigh I bor Is forty or fifty miles away, the fur l hunter soon learns to rely upon his own | resources and live for himself, defy1nE
 the laws of the state and the rules Of health to gain the results he seeks. If | his moccasins or his snowshoes wear out, he does not hesitate to shoot deer or l moose for the sake of using the raw hide in repairing his footgear and having 1 killed the animal to sustain his own n1e' I he has small compunction about eating it's flesh and employing Its fat to Keep his traps from rusting or to Timber up his stiffening joints.
 1 Having no grindstone for the sharpen ing of his axe and knife. he makes a file serve instead. If his clothing gets dirty l from long wear, he shifts his undergar- ments and washes the ones he has taken off through hole in the ice, drying them by the open nfe, ana ltliiH6 HIS 'outSieo clothing put on new coats of grime as circumstances direct, relying upon snow storms and rubbing against brush bed ding to keep the surplus dirt.
 No Books; No Sunday. No trapper was ever known to take an almanac or book of any kind into his camp For a time he may keep run of the
 days. but as he has no Sundays in his business he soon forgets the days of the week or the month and fixes the date of his breaking camp and seeking the out
 side world by the condition of the fur on the creatures he captures and by the ef- fects of the sunlight upon the snow. In the dazzling glare of February he often goes snowblind for weeks at time. the only gleam of light he receives com l ing to him through two narrow slits in | huge spruce goggles, which he has whit tied out from rough wood. By March 1, the fur is so thin that further trapping would be improbable. so he hides hts traps in a hollow log to be ready for | the work of the next winter. packs hia